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Psychopomp. A guider of souls.

I am that.

I am many things.

Psychic, witch, angel.

Conversations with the soldier, he says I protect people. We are the same in that way, I am not alone anymore. I have him fighting beside me.

He asked me why psychics never win the lottery. The answer is simple dearheart, I am unable to see anything about me. Good/bad/dangerous/safe. I can only see what is coming to those close to me.

Someone else read my future, I don’t get to stay. This I know.

I cannot protect myself either, I have an agreement with the universe, she sends me soldiers and lost boys, sometimes both in the same body, always bearing lessons.

I have to learn them, take all the pain so I know how to shield others from it. In return I get adventures without happily ever after. It’s alright.

I have things to teach and be.

The most relevant thing that I be at the moment is the Sister to All Women.

Some girl I have never met, I think her name is Christina, has been getting the weekend visits I was offered from the boy I wanted.

So now I don’t want him.

Well I kinda do, but my soul says no.

I have watched lesser women rip each other to pieces over lesser boys. I hate it when women compete. Stop honey, that is your sister and he is just a boy.

I’m trying to negotiate with the universe so she can keep him if she wants to. Having trouble establishing a timeline. I am hoping it was no more offside than … he saw me, I asked him out and he just had to try. I get that. I too, just have to try sometimes. Hail Mary passes et al.

I already know that isn’t true.

The lying? I cannot abide.

I should be fluent in Fuckboi by now. “I’m not coming home until after Christmas” loosely translates to “I’m 26 and don’t have the finesse to figure out how to keep 2 girls going just on weekends”.

His pedestal looks more like a footstool.

One date and one of the ugliest ‘poofs’ I have experienced as of late.
I put him in an article with Gelfling. The reigning Elven King of Cheesy Poofs. Now I know why.
They are the King and Prince of Neverwhere. They even look a bit alike.

At least I got a nice dinner out of it.

That is what I keep telling myself anyways.

Here is the thing. I had him in my house and I didn’t fuck him. I had to fight not to. I really him, from the second I saw him. Even more when he spoke. I liked the way he looked and the way he looked at me. I’ll tell you a secret, if he’d had me there wouldn’t be room for others.

When is a Fuckboi not a Fuckboi? Never, even when you don’t fuck them apparently.

Lesson learned.

During the collapse of the Dothraki Empire wherein I couldn’t figure out Drogo. There was nothing to figure out. Sicut.
I spoke to the Hulk. I wailed to my big green monster I said I felt disposable, only valued in absentia. He went through the list of things I ought not to do, fucking on the first date was on the list. It was the list.

The week before I was fussing at Young Un about the same damned thing. I said “I need to date a rock star or an athlete or something. Someone who has something more important than me so I can keep the things I love like my alone time and my crazed fits of writing.”
And copious amounts of sex, without rules, limitations and timelines. I fucked him before dinner and he is still around. Drogo too. It is part of who I am.

He said  the one I was seeing wasn’t good enough for me. That phrase is common amongst my friends, every time someone hurts me. I will concede to this way of thinking when someone conjures me a God, or an Angel.

I managed to manifest myself an athlete, who quickly became another pretty ghost with a pretty mouth. And I didn’t even get laid.

So I’m a necromancer as well, we have established that I only date the dead.
I don’t know if I would have the slightest clue what to do with a real boy.

I’m not exactly safe.

I am also Chaos. The thing all great changes are preceded by.

My work here is done. He doesn’t marry this one either. Sic erat scriptum.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

This is how you kill demons, you love them, hug them so hard they can’t breathe.
Rage feeds them, so I won’t, even when I want to.

It is my job not to flinch and just listen.

It’s not hard.

My heart breaks harder and louder.

So I stand.

The words coming, flowing freely is how the poison gets out.

I said once that ‘when the wars wage in heaven it’s my job to tend to the wounded.’

Aye, this.

“But there are wars down here Sarah. Do your job.”

My job, just like his, is to run into the fray with bullets and bandages. Sword and shield. This is what I am learning from him.

I ask my girls, the others that do what I do.

First thing that needs to be done is to wash the blood and grime and see how deep the cuts are. I already know the answer, down to the bone and into the marrow.

Nothing that can’t be mended.

By all rights I shouldn’t be here either.
I would never compare pain, but there are many times I hung onto the mortal coil by my fingernails.

“Empathic people are born with a gift and a curse.
Tormented by our pain and paralyzed by yours.
We are stabbed twice.”
Randy Mascorro

No.

Maybe before I remembered my wings, not now.

“When you begin to let that empathy guide you into being an agent of love in those situations (no matter how small the role of helper may be)….it stops hurting. Alchemy happens. The wound is the purpose.” Danielle Davis (yes, this)

I’m not afraid.

I used to be afraid. I once broke windows and people.

This strange thing happens when I am near him, I feel stronger, bigger, more like myself. My other half awaking.

I am dangerous.

Aye, I am.

“not all of us can control our powers.”
“then don’t…
this is war.”

X-Men, Apocalypse

I am exactly terrifying enough.

The bible speaks of the Nephilim, half angel/half human, the heroes in old stories. So tall they burned their necks on the sun.

Frida Kahlo said “take a lover who looks at you like you are magic.”

I do that.

They do that.

Right before they run.

I’m over asking what I’ve done.

I had one boy once look at me and say “You’re way too good for me and I don’t want to be there the morning you wake up, look at me and realize that, it might kill me.”

We hadn’t had a date yet.

That one came off like a band-aid, nice and quick. No stickiness or tearing. Amazing how palpable the worst things said can be when coated in kindness and self-preservation. His, not mine.

“It’s having a thing and losing it that’ll kill ya”. Cold Mountain.

I get no choice in the matter. Part of me dies every fucking time. I bleed too.

Hardly seems fair.

Life isn’t overly fair. It is beautiful and wonderful, exactly like these boys I meet. But fair? Rarely.

Frida also had instructions for what to do when they are gone.

Frida…I am sorry my love.

My lovers and my heart are wolves, can’t be trained/tamed.

My bathtub is full of saltwater, and sometimes blood or tears or cum.

I have whiskey in my teacup.

My doors do not lock.

Maybe I should marry a locksmith.

Unless something happens and the lines on my palms change, there is no marriage for me. I know this and accept it.
They call nuns the brides of Christ and witches the wives of Satan. It’s alright.

I check heartlines. If I see an M, I know. Not Mine.

Still cuts when they leave.

My friends rally when I bleed, “he isn’t good enough for you.”

They don’t see what I see. I see souls. When I see one that is beautiful I cannot help but gravitate to it. Drop a note on a napkin into his hand and hope.

Hope is a beggar (JC). I must remember this.

I do not beg, chase or hope.

“Here is yes”. (SK)

I let them talk.
They shock themselves with the truth that comes flying out.

They say “I have never told anyone that before”, or “I can’t believe I said that.”

Then they pull their own bridges down.

It’s exponentially easier when the last things said are ‘we should go for sushi one night’ as opposed to ‘I want to jump in your trailer, drive until we hit the ocean and spend the rest of my life tasting you, swimming and making art’. (Gelfling)

Like healing a papercut versus a bullet wound.

I’m still running out of bandages.

The one who said ‘sushi’, I saw his future. I know I am not in it.
I have my apartment just my size, and he finds his home elsewhere, with her.

These two share a timeline. 1260.9688 days before the things I’ve prophetized become truth.

I just went through 100 days thinking I wanted to belong to someone.
I am out now.
It was dark there, it had to be so I could see light.
I was subjected to illuminated views of what my girls endure for their relationships. Shown giant neon déjà vu reminders of my own past when I was on lockdown in low men’s beds like prisons, deserts, arid. 10 000 days without magic. Never again.

I once was a papier-mâché puppet.

No more. I’m flesh and blood and bone and longing. No longer tormented and tied by strings.

Heart the size of Arizona if Arizona was the name of a star so big they haven’t made a category for it yet.

My lovers look at me like I am magic because I am.

I call myself a witch because it’s easier. I heal everyone but me.
I see things and they come running out of my mouth like a river. Sometimes it’s too much, like a spring flood and no one is safe near the water.

Our Sara of Lords was consoling me last night. My women never leave me.

She said:

“…And Sarah?  We’re not witches love.  We’re The Fallen.

The Fallen attract the witches and blend in with them but we’re different.  And our wings don’t work here.  And it hurts.  It burns.  And all we can do is love the shit out of each other until we get to go home.”

This tastes like truth in my mouth.

Mind you, so did he. And him, and the others.

I’ll see her and him soon. Going home for a spell.

Pilgrimage to the ocean. I need it. I’ve been bleeding out as of late without transfusions.

When I get back there will be sushi.

And it will be good, for now, not forever amen.

Drogo: Why are you telling me about your date with someone else?

Me: Give it a minute, it loops back to you, and I didn’t fuck him so hush.

Drogo: Okay

The conversation ended with me saying “do you know how hard it is to storm out of the CN Tower?”

I didn’t but I wanted to.

This was Sunday.

On Saturday I was up in the sky for the second time that day.

I had a forkful of really good salmon 2/3 of the way to my mouth.

He said the thing and time stopped.

The fish hung in limbo.

Time slows down when adrenalin hits. Fight or flight.

I guess it could have been worse, he could have reminded me of his girlfriend while I was flying the plane. I wonder if I could have kept my hand off the door latch. Unlikely. Sometimes my hands fly on their own.

I know I speak in metaphors a lot. But I really did fly a plane and he really does have a girlfriend.

They are in an open relationship. Apparently she ironed his shirt for our date.

I said he reminded me that he had a girlfriend because I knew.
If you call the passage of 100 days and I am supposed to recall something said off the cuff when I was drunk something I should ‘know’.
I forgot, memory just erased it. She does that sometimes, neither here nor there until I am 1,815.4 feet up in the air with a bite of salmon poised to enter my mouth and all of the sudden my memory snaps back so fast I get mental whiplash and my appetite and happiness dissipate at lightning speed. I dropped the fork.

“Remember?” he said, “I told you she was older and you said ‘no wonder my internal cougar alarm is going off’.”

Oh I totally said that. I wonder what other clever shit comes flying out of my mouth when I drink, I could probably write a book.

Fight or flight.

There is always a third option. Remember Colossus from the X-Men? Perceives a threat and this liquid metal covers his body rendering him bulletproof. Ya, I did that.

You see dear reader, this is the dramatic conclusion to about 100 days wherein I thought I wanted a boyfriend.

This guy planned such a spectacular date that I felt like a princess instead of my usual which is stripper/booty call/backup plan. I put on a false front, pretend it doesn’t bother me, but it does.

“Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed, and passed over” A Perfect Circle.

I mean I make myself disposable, I really do. I date in fits and starts and multiples. I have back up plans/lovers. I am a stripper, hard to take seriously.

Two kinds of men date strippers, pimps and guys that don’t really like you that much. If feelings do arise, then a choice must be made. Mine is self-evident. I strip, period.

I shouldn’t say that. Someday I will be done.

There is another kind of man who dates strippers. Male strippers and porn stars.

The guy that took me up in the sky is those things.

I thought I had a chance. I was wrong.

The next 24 hours were spent a) with Drogo and b) realizing how much I like my life as is.

I needed a little shake up I guess.
I needed to have what I thought I wanted handed to me and snatched away.

I also needed reminding of how I feel about open relationships.

As we sat in the car on the long awkward ride home he kept saying ‘but you have other boys’.

Aye, I do. Less than before but more than zero.

If I did somehow end up in a relationship, I would lose my lost boys. Gently, but they would go. I do not carry old baggage into new relationships. It’s unfair to everyone.

I have also stated that I am by nature a monogamous creature. I am. Sometimes Vagina and Heart just agree, all others cease to exist and I am happy.

I am perfectly capable of and willing to be in an open relationship. I have tried on those pants before and they didn’t fit, but I know why and where they need to be taken in and let out.

I dated a guy who was bi-sexual in my 20’s. I knew when he snuck off to indulge with boys. I just let him. What hurt me is that he felt shame about it instead of telling me. His shame turned to guilt and begat violence. I didn’t dump him for cheating, I dumped him for hitting me.

Once upon a time I invited another woman into my marriage and what killed it was the history that existed between her and my husband. They were cruel. I went swimming in that polyamory pool and it was so caustic I almost melted away. They actually made me lose my physical self. 30 pounds, 30% of my flesh.

After I walked away from my open marriage I almost walked into someone else’s. Cared for a man so deeply that I held his hand walking through the mall with his fiancé grasping the other hand. Watched him beam with joy and was happy for him and vicariously through. But I couldn’t ignore the pain in her face, nor can I stomach being secondary. Lesson learned.

We will speak in detail of the Black Wedding another day, but know that on the day he married her, he called her my name 3 times. I wasn’t secondary at all.

I am no pain dealer*. I walked. Never looked back.

I told the Porn Star I needed a few days to mull things over. He inundated me with journal entries, books, messages, fb likes and had my friends asking about him.

You can’t give me 3 days? What other rules won’t you follow? The answer is all.

And my answer is No.

I came down from the sky and went swimming in the pool of Drogo. He is water to me. Cleansing and refreshing. We laughed/scoffed at the idea of a relationship. Neither of us wanting to give up our kingdoms.

Drogo remains my primary. I will cancel anything with anyone if he wants to see me. He is the Peter Pan among my lost boys. He is also my friend, which is paramount.

I am hoping for my own sanity that these bouts of wanting to be in a relationship come few and far between, like Star Wars or the Gunslinger series, years pass with nothing.

The gunslinger walked through the desert…into a galaxy far far away.

(*Alfa)

Um, the Sun and stars died.

George, what did you do?

Oh Drogo.

If he can die, what hope is there?

On Game of Thrones? None, everybody dies.

In real life, my life…I walk into the funeral pyre and emerge the next morning, naked, new, with dragons on my shoulder and Drogo lives.

I had to wait a while to write this one.

If I write when I am hurt the words taste like venom in my mouth. My tongue becomes forked and I don’t like what I see. Kali without her mask on. Hera and her jealousy turning men into monsters.

Of course he is a monster, I wouldn’t like him otherwise.

Only monsters fuck like he does, like they read an instruction manual and learned what I love before I even landed in his bed, the car, the pool, the hammock, his couch, in his shower.

Eulogies are supposed to be a celebration of a light that has gone out, we don’t throw mud at funerals, just polite handfuls of dirt. When the hand opens and the dirt falls, that is the end.

There is no eulogy here. Only epiphanies.

I said before, the words ‘I told you so’ doesn’t put the rubble back to houses after an earthquake. It is impossible to rebuild with what is left after a disaster. New materials are needed. The cracks must be examined to determine where the weaknesses lie.

I built a house from straw and the wind knocked it down. I got the wind knocked out of me too.

Imagine if you will, me, married, mostly.

I explained before that my marriage was like a revolving door. Me inside, then she would push and I would end up outside, I’d push back and so it would go, a very un-merry go round.

I read a thing that stated ‘the indicator of any good relationship is the lack of seeing it on social media’.

Considering what I went through, having to check my Facebook every hour on the hour to see if which one of us was taking her turn as his secret mistress or celebrated wifey. Seeing pics of her and him while he paraded one of us out for the world to see while shunning the other.

Dirty laundry has no place here upon the Facebooks. It looks really gross. Wash your shit then hang it out. My tolerance for drama has dropped to zero. So that I agree with.

I cannot help it but I just suffered the worst of stomach rolling induced by déjà vu.

I saw something, Drogo on a date. My Pavlovian response was not to salivate, I cried. Ugly cry wherein breathing becomes impossible.

When the wind left my lungs it carried a low moan with it, that whale song my heart sometimes makes and it was answered, as it always is. This time by the Hulk.

I haven’t spoken to him since July, but his voice rings clear when I read his words, it is stern and coated in caring “if you talk about your other lovers to his face. That shows a green light for him to search too. When we started you had “Sunday” on the side and therefore I figured we wouldn’t be exclusive and I didn’t focus. Sorry to use this example but it works here.”

It works, perfect fit with a hermetic seal to contain the ashes of my Hulk. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I remembered being drunk with him, sitting in front of a church when we didn’t want a date to end. His eyes used to light up when I spoke. I confessed my sin of Sunday on a bench in front of Christ’s Church Cathedral, I watched the light dim.

Forgive me Father for Ima fucking idiot.

I failed to understand and I did the exact same thing again and then had it done unto me.

In the interest of being honest I didn’t keep anything to myself.
Just like being a mistress is abhorrent to me, so is fucking lying.

I know the other mistake I made. Talked about it at great length already. I made myself a whore and not a housewife.

I am this.

I had no idea I was going to catch feelings. I would have lost a pretty substantial amount of money betting I wouldn’t.

I am tired of being self-fulfilling prophecy girl, able to fuck her own shit up with some well-crafted words.

I talked myself in and out of pursuing a relationship with Drogo until I got dizzy, another un-merry go round. When the spinning stopped I realized, I don’t know how to ‘girlfriend’, what with all the heavily armed lost boys, my pet monsters and dragons on my shoulder.

I was waiting to feel safe enough to talk to him about it and that time never came. It wasn’t necessary. I like things the way they are. I AM safe here, with him.

I learned this during the burning.

We both came out new.

This is how I rebuild.

Something wonderful happened. I waited for the smoldering to subside and went exploring.

I found the cracks and identified the fire hazards.

He is my sanctuary, my safe place and my something to look forward to. A summer home, a spa getaway.

I’ve said before and I will say again, of course you can live at Disneyland, but that would take the magic away, for me at least.

Drogo is capitol F fine and mystical as is.

I said to the Hulk near the end of our palaver “I have been over you and I in my mind a thousand times. Not fully grasping what happened until you mentioned giving green lights and feeling disposable. At the time I only wanted you, and I’m sorry I ever made you feel differently.”

I know better now.

It took the sun collapsing on itself for things to illuminate.
I am the girl who studies the ashes and ruins.
Sometimes things have to burn for me to see.

No this can’t fucking be. ~ Lafayette (True Blood)

I had an angel read my palm last night.

It didn’t go well.

I have odd lines across my hands, so does he. We’ve shown each other before and just reveled in the camaraderie of our shared weird, never took it any further.

I don’t know why he decided to grab my hand. I don’t know why angels do what they do.

I don’t know why I do what I do either.

“Stop looking for love, yours is long gone” he said. “I’m sorry”.

He said I had work to do. Showed me photos of the love he lost too. Angel empathy is a powerful thing. Of course I teared up a little.

For someone who knows beyond all doubt that everything is temporary, I fuss about it a lot.

And I lied. I know exactly why he chose that moment to read me. Thoughts were flying around in my head all discombobulated. He heard them and knew I was lost and lying to myself. He took my hand to steady me.

“Well did (s)he make you cry make you break down shatter your illusions of love, well is it over now do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?” (Fleetwood Mac)

Ya. I cried, I broke down and now I am home.

Reinforced what I already knew in my heart of hearts. But as I have said my heart is a 3 year old with chronic amnesia. I’m sure we will have to sit down and have the talk again when she decides she ‘wants that one’. There is no toothsome fairy baby. I am sorry. She really wants her fairy.

My Field of Dreams voice is speaking up again.

“Her name is Katie and she has cotton candy hair”. It was Kaya, but close enough. I lost Young Un that day. Fought it, hoped the message was for someone else. But it was mine. That all worked out in the end so it’s alright. He remembered me as someone who deals in kindness.

When I dream of Gelfling, I watch his perfect lips move. I reach out, braid my fingers in the silk of his hair, reposition my body to get closer to hear what he is saying but all I can feel is the kiss of his breath on my neck. No words. Not sure if I am deaf or if he is muted, I think both. I already know how that plays out, or when…not how nor where nor why.

And then this.

I’m torn. What else is new?

Dreaming yesterday I watched an interview with a boy I met, on some weird TV screen in my head. I know his future.

But how do you tell someone that?

I already know how, I am pontificating for effect. This is what writers do.

I will ask if he wants to hear it and he will say yes, I already know this too.

I half read his palm after dinner. The usual fortune teller stuff. He lives long and prospers. Not a lot of trauma or deviations. Just a good life for a good man. He is. I saw it.

I watched pain cross the face of that angel when he saw the broken heart lines in my hand, like a doctor delivering a grim prognosis with no cure. I hate having to pass on bad messages too, I know how he felt, but he did the right thing. It is what I needed to hear.

What I saw happening to this boy. He was happy and loved. I come bearing glad tidings of comfort and joy. You are a good man and you get exactly what you want. I know I won’t be there when that happens. I know I am not her.

Took a lot of pressure off actually. Those two things all at once. I saw his future and my absence from it, went for a second opinion and it was so. So be it. The question is how long I get him before he has to go.

The answers are always the same and vague … ‘build it, go the distance and ease his pain’.

What is going to happen in 4 years when he comes realizes I told the truth? Probably just a ‘holy shit’ moment I know won’t be around to witness. A smirk perhaps as he sees himself doing the thing I said he was going to do. I hope that comes with a sidenote of ‘she was really nice to me’ and a smile.

If I cannot be loved, being remembered as magic will have to do.

Hear ye hear ye. A proclamation from the queen that is me.

Gah, I fucking hate that. Women calling themselves queens and goddesses running around belittling men and other women. That is not how this works, that is not how any of this works.

You know what else doesn’t work…

This fucking phenomenon wherein men sit in the front row at strip clubs and think/believe that somehow the stripper on stage can’t hear what you are saying. Seriously who talks like that about a girl you don’t know?

It’s not a zoo. There’s no soundproof glass between us and you. Knock that nasty shit off. You bang on the glass at pet stores to scare the kittens too don’t you? Gross.

However, if you would like to sing karaoke to Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing while giving me lusty eyes and smiles, as you were, please do that.
I like that.
I might be prompted to write my name down on a piece of paper and pass it to you like a note in study hall.
But that is a story for another day.

It’s not a zoo, it’s not a pet store or a museum.

After much studying of the subject I have decided strip clubs are decidedly like high school.

And every night is a Sadie Hawkins dance. Girls asking the boys. Sometimes they say yes.

One of the girls said to me that she read somewhere that men go to strip clubs so they can reject women that are way out of their league. That is one reason I guess. Misguided and sad, but a reason. Maybe we could slip the zoo analogy in their too. The men come to look at exotic things, and sometimes they bang on the glass and throw shit like the caged primates they are. But that makes them the animals, not us. If the dirty shoe fits, a girl might end up throwing it at you.

Back to high school.

I wonder if that is part of the reason I gravitate to work in those places. I ran away from home at 15 subsequently not having a high school experience. Who takes a stripper to the prom?

I wasn’t a stripper then. I just had a regular job, rent and bills to pay. I didn’t finish high school until my son was born keeping with my trend of doing absolutely everything backwards. But I did it and graduated with honors, so there is that then.

Strip clubs are a hierarchy. The bouncers are the jocks, the waitresses are the teaching staff. We have a principal and a vice-principal playing good cop/bad cop nightly, sometimes switching roles to keep us on our toes. There are the popular (and sometimes) mean girls. The foreign exchange students keep to themselves. There are the shop kids, the goth girls, and bullies. Girls from homes in varying stages of broken putting on make up to hide bruises. Teenage pregnancy abounds.

In my limited high school career I floated around between groups, friends with everyone and no one. Except the Plastics, they hated me, made my life hell. Called me every euphemism for slut in the book, surprised they knew how to open books really, might break a nail.

The ‘slut’ moniker comes in handy now. It is my job to appear available even though I most certainly am not.

Locker contents are decidedly different, more sparkles and lucite shoes, less books but I have seen a few. Still hair spray and lip gloss though. And vodka, someone always has vodka in their locker. And the principals do the occasional sweep looking for contraband, wait…that’s jail. Its kinda like jail too.

There is drama and crushes nightly. “Did you hear about so and so?” Gossiping bitches galore. Not always just the girls either, most of us have better things to do. Like homework.

There are the good students who just put their heads down and do the work. Then there are the others, some of them skip constantly begging the question why are you even here? Someone is always getting suspended or kicked out over something. Unlike the jocks at my high school, the bouncers I work with are the good kind of tough guy. They keep us safe, like hall monitors with honorable discharges and security training.

I think every environment filled with random people will always falls into a similar pattern. Maybe jail is like high school as well, just bloodier. I have never been but I can ask around. Every office I ever worked in. Yep, we humans are pretty basic creatures when you stick us in a building and ask us to perform a certain task.

My job?

A lot like getting up in front of the class to do those once dreaded book report presentations aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the clincher? I’m naked.
It’s not a nightmare anymore. I used to stutter and sputter trying to get the words out, hands cold and clammy with fear.
Stage is my favorite place to be.
I have found my voice speaking in stern clipped teacher tones explaining that “yes, I can fucking hear every word you are saying”.

My life now is much the same as it was in high school.
Except the Mean Girls like me.
I guess we have progressed a little past the playground.

‘I was raped.’ I said, and reached for my whiskey.

He looked up at me, angry.
My first thought was “oh shit…storm comin’.”

I pulled back and my hand shook a little making the ice clink in my glass.

Panic took hold for the slightest sliver of a second. I am hand shy.

I am a weather witch for reals. I can look up at the sky, the clouds, rings around the moon and tell you what the weather will be like.

I studied the patterns of clouds and thunder in his face and saw that he was mirroring my own hurt, pain, anger and angst over what had happened.
I had had 14 years to deal, he was taking it all on all at once.

That was protectiveness, empathy for a girl he just met.

Amazing.

“It’s alright, I’m alright.” I said conjuring my most ‘it’s alright’ tone. Hush baby.

His shoulders dropped slightly, his eyes went back to grey/blue skies instead of the terrifying shade that is tornado warning green and the conversation continued.

I said if we ever end up having sex, I can’t feel confined. I need to know where the door is.
He said that was more than okay and he understood.

We went on to discuss more pleasant things, we had a lot of topics to choose from, pretty much everything ever is better than that one thing. We both wiggled on our barstools when Travelling Wilbury’s and Paul Simon came on.

It was a good date.

When I left Saint Anthony it was messy. Not sure if it is possible to exit a tumultuous on and off 7 year marriage in a clean manner. I have no other precedent other than the end of the 5 year one that came before. That was gross too.

The common thread that binds the ends of those two is I was on my way out the door to another lover.

Queen of the Monkey Bars. I’ve since abdicated my throne, but it is who I was.

Saint Anthony has a rather unflattering nickname for the one I ran to, I won’t repeat it but I don’t have one of my own. Initials will have to do JC.

I half joked with Drogo once that I had had more sex and orgasms with him than I did in my entire 7 year marriage. There is truth in that statement, horrible, long wandering through the driest of deserts truth. My husband didn’t fuck me enough, barely at all.

He didn’t know me either. I didn’t so how could he have. That’s impossible.

So I left Saint Ant for JC. Spent the next month in bed making up for lost sex.

One fine morning, we had had the morning sex. I was sated and ready for coffee and a cigarette. JC wasn’t. He proceeded to padlock the room we were in so I couldn’t get out.

I had not mentioned to JC that I wasn’t just raped. I was held hostage in my apartment. Beaten, terrorized and raped repeatedly by an ex for 7 hours. He said he was going to kill me and I believe he would have if I hadn’t gotten out. I zigged when he zagged and ran to the neighbors. Barefoot, without pants on New Year’s Day. An ex I had bailed out of jail for beating me 5 months prior so badly I looked like I had been in a car wreck. An ex who had a restraining order stating he could not be near my house much less in it waiting for me inside when I got home from work. Restraining orders are just pieces of useless paper. Locks mean almost as little when it comes to keeping someone out. They mean a little more when you are trapped inside.

Trigger with a capitol T.

I wonder what I look like to others when I get that angry. I scared a 7’2” bar manager badly one night when I got that mad. He admitted he was scared of me and the firing of me I had forced him to do. So I am guessing it’s pretty terrifying. Like Medusa, but I am the one that turns to stone. Unyielding, hard and cold.

JC unlocked the door and apologized. I had my coffee, several cigarettes and immediately began looking for another place to stay.

Years later…

I decided to tell the truth. All of it.

That boy on the bar stool with the hurricane eyes was my real first date. Not something I tripped and fell into, not something I landed in running from somewhere else. He was my choice.

I had somewhat figured out who I am as a person and wanted to try being my self. My messy, dorky, healed-up, witchy self.

The category 5 that I summoned with those 3 words was him seeing me, as I am, as something much too precious to be ripped apart that way.

We are still friends and he still looks at me that way. We protect each other.

I write this blog about my life.

I have touched on the subject of being raped and never really gotten into it.

I had a crazy troll experience via my Facebook page wherein a man from Kentucky was being rude towards women. I asked him to stop, said sorry he had been hurt but it was a toxic idea to blame all women. I told him I had been raped and did in no way believe all men were rapists. His reaction?

He got rapey.

He sent gory photos of women being beheaded. Implied I was so uppity that mayhap Ted Bundy would have been a better choice for my rapist because then I would be dead and unable to open my whore mouth.

See the juxtaposition here? I do.

The only reason I told the first date boy what had happened was to not have a repeat of JC and the padlock.

There are good men and bad men.

My friends rallied around me to keep me safe from the bad man.

There really are not words to describe how that felt. I was technically alone in my apartment, shaking and scared. I opened my mouth and asked for help and it arrived at lightning speed. The ghosts in my machine had him pinpointed at a safe distance, blocked reported and harassed back in mere minutes. Polar opposite to my prior experiences.

I feel safe now.

My girl messaged me saying

I want to say that you are wonderful. That it takes courage to survive and to say in an open forum that someone hurt you and you couldn’t stop it. I want you to know that you are loved and that I am sorry for the wrong done for you. There are so many who never find the voice or the strength to fight back and overcome. People who seek to degrade and dominate others are weak and can never fill the void in themselves so they do something evil to spread the pain that they have. Trying to turn the light out in others. The sweetest and most important things cannot be destroyed by others. They live deep inside your secret heart. Where the soul lives. Your words reach a lot of people. And you speaking of that which is stigmatized and unspeakable may give another courage to not be a victim but a survivor. I love you.

I love you Liza, bravest woman I know.

Here is the thing. I do not feel like a victim. I do not feel like I survivor. I just feel like me.

I am not what happened to me. I make mistakes and learn.

I am still here. There is not one cell of my body left that my rapist ever touched. I have regenerated over and over and will continue to do so. I shed my skin often. It’s part of growth and forward momentum, and science really.

It is my fervent hope that this reaches anyone else who has had this happen. I want you to know that there a people out there, myself included who will make you feel loved and protected like I do. You are worthy of love and protection.

I am not made out of some unattainable magic.
Well, sometimes I am but in this instance I am just a girl who found my worth reflected in a boy’s eyes over a whiskey and some nachos when I decided to tell the truth.

“I don’t deal with time wasters, I’m off to the Slaughtered Prince for a pint.” Neil Gaiman, Stardust

Time is a luxury. Especially when it is free. I love being free, unencumbered. I get days off so rarely I guard them jealously like a dragon hoards gold.

Graham. He’s the one too boring to warrant a nickname.
I have negotiated with the universe to get that time back.

When I left him I moved into a cute, tiny crooked house. I was working 2 jobs then as well.

Its déjà vu all over again.

Except I used to monkey bar from one relationship to another, feet never touching the ground. Not anymore.

I left Graham for Jesus.

Sounds really simple as I type it. It wasn’t.

It was hell, both the living with him and the leaving.

I told him I was leaving and he came at me with fists. I ran to the bathroom, didn’t get the door shut in time. He threw me into the shower stall and fed me punches until his brother pulled him off of me.

All doubts I had about leaving went down the drain along with the blood pouring from my split lip.

Jesus saves.

He picked me up and stood guard over me for the second time after I had been beaten. Kissed my forehead because my mouth was in ruins, again.

I am at that point where this article divides. I am messaging with a girlfriend who is where I was when I was with Graham. Domesticated. And that just simply cannot be for me for her for lots of us. Kinda leads into what I really wanted to talk about.

Long distance relationships.

The general consensus is that a physical distance between lovers is something that must be endured.

I say nay. I disagree. I savour it.

I didn’t really date in high school (another story for another day). What I had was ‘summer boys’. Cottagers from far away. We ate ice cream, held hands, swam in my lake and when I was old enough there was sweaty groping teenage sex in the great outdoors. Suited me fine. I had friends to hang out with, a job and lived with a perpetual delicious grin that is born of something/someone to look forward to.

“The truth is that airports have seen more sincere kisses than the wedding halls” Unknown.

Something about that separation and coming back together pleases me, pleases most of us. It’s the absence in between we can’t handle because a lot of people depend on their partners for a percentage of their own happiness.

I don’t.

Not sure I ever did. I didn’t really know what happy was. I didn’t know who I was so how could I possibly understand the things that made me happy? I mean I kinda knew, but those were the things that immediately got put aside when I tripped and fell into any of the long series of long term relationships.

I would hand them a knife and let them carve pieces from me so I fit into them.

I didn’t realize this is not how it is done. “I am no longer searching for my other half, I am not a half” Unknown.

I am a romantic girl at heart, I really am. Things that only happen in movies happen to me because I believe they will with all of my silly, clumsy heart. I have come to see that I write and direct the movie that is my life and in my movie the boy chases the girl in the rain because he is afraid he will never see her again.

I spent 18 years in 3.5 long term relationships. As odd as it sounds, none of them were really my choice, save Jesus. And he was married to someone else for the bulk of it (hence the .5)

It sounds strange but it’s true. I would be single for a month or two, I would meet someone new, go on a few dates and all of a sudden we were living together and he’s yelling at me about bills and laundry.
The fuck? How did I get here and more importantly how the fuck do I get out?

I never did get a gold watch for my years of indentured servitude. Just black eyes and blackmail. One actually stole my dog and made me buy her back. Classy.

Jesus was my choice.

We had met 6 years prior, he had just gotten out of a relationship. He wasn’t ready for another. I was so I bailed rather than waiting
I spent years regretting it and being his mistress.
For the record, that is not how this works either. We had some good movie moments though. Pebbles at my window. I stormed off a few times and he chased me.

Years later I saw his name in a friend’s sketchbook. My eyes lit up, and he said “Oh ya, Jesus got divorced last year, says he’s been looking for you the whole time.” It was pretty romantic.

I sent him an email that night that said very plainly

when are you coming home

The answer?

as soon as I can

He was living in Montreal.

Saw him 3 weekends a month, we checked in every other day or so.

My life was then, as it is now. 2 jobs, friends and I write a lot. I live in a crooked little house.

As I look back and examine my life panning for the gold in the muck, I see how good it felt to be with someone and still keep my semblance of self.

Something wonderful happened when I took my life back. I got exponentially happier every day. I found things I’d once held sacred and lost. When I started to find myself, others found me. People who like my quirks and strangeness because they have their own.

I love my apartment, reminiscent of Carrie Bradshaw’s from Sex and the City. I will be like her soon, writing for a living. I like this life path I am on, why wouldn’t I? It’s finally my choice. I know myself and what I require and I have the luxury of waiting for someone that fits into me. I built this existence with my own two hands and I’m happy here.

I was made for this. This is what I really want someone who has enough of their own life that I get to keep mine. And airport kisses.

“My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.” Warsan Shire

And just as important…

“If you build it he will come.” Field of Dreams