Weigh Them All

Pick a word like you pick a melon. examine its skin. its weight. its viscosity. its sound. its texture. its ability to be juice and meat.

~Nayyirah Waheed

I’m a sucker for long conversations and the exchange of words.

I crave meaningful engagement. Head to heart. The other way around. With mouths and tongues and long text messages.

I revel in the way they travel from the lips of a lover and float in the air to land on my ear. On purpose. I sit in silence as they pass through my brain and resonate after the comprehension. And when they settle on my heart, I anchor myself in the emotions they elicit. I sit with them and think through what they mean to me. What they meant to the lips that uttered them.

I miss you. Feels like winter has decided to visit three months early and I am missing from someone. Like an ingredient misses from your favourite late night indulgence and when you bite into it, you can tell that something just isn’t right.

I need you. Feels like what I imagine cracked lips feel like at high noon in the middle of a desert after days of walking in circles, searching for a way home. Water. Needed.

I don’t want you. Feels like the final hour of labour and smells like the halls of abandoned hospitals in B rated horror movies. Like your screams for help are heard by no-one and there won’t be anyone to catch the fruit of your pain as it leaves your body every single time your hips crack.

I hate you. Smells like burning letters from lovers past filled with sentences that convinced you to cut up half of your soul and hand it over to masked witches who promised you off-white dresses and happily ever afters as you slept.

I lied. Feels like waking up to false alarms on weekend mornings drenched in panic because you need to be somewhere. Anywhere really, where everything sounds real and your hands don’t slip through solid walls and Alice doesn’t have to drink from strange bottles or  speak with white rabbits to make sense of things.

I don’t care. Reminds me of the shade of rejection and features prominently on every seventh page of the book of life. Because how could we be complete if we didn’t hear words that hurt us. Well rounded, they say.

I love you. Feels like a secret message written in clumsy cursive on a torn-off page corner, folded too many times, passed down through rows of curious messengers with grubby hands which lifts up off of the paper as you open it. Warm and innocent. Well,it used to be.

Often, as I sit with the words, I forget to listen for what comes before, sometimes after. And as I am washed in the water that I have chosen to swim in, I forget to listen to the violent downpour that made it. To listen to the gentle rain that drew puddles which grew into lakes that flowed into oceans…

You get my drift though?

That sometimes that’s all they are.

Words.

Nothing more.

And seeking an anchor from well-practiced, hastily uttered speeches is unwise.

 

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Of Trust Issues and Whirlwinds

Let me talk to you about trust issues. (Yes it’s okay that Drake is the soundtrack to this, in your mind).

A few (or a lot, who knows really) months ago I had a post-bar heart to heart with my best male friend. Listen, this man is my ride or die and has been there through ALL of it with me, and no, he isn’t one of those “he’s waiting to hit” fellas, “just biding his time ’till I’m ready to see him” fellas.

So stow your judgment. Put it far away.

I don’t enjoy crying. Wait, let me start afresh.

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Some women are in touch with their tears. They do not fight their heartbreak and the dark and heavy emotions that sweep over their souls when life makes them weary. They embrace them and make it awkward for their emotionally detached friends (read, me) at 2AM mid unnecessarily deep conversations in public (everywhere there are people who are drinking things). I remember the last time I was that woman and I swore to never be her again. *Laughs in men are trash and wasted make-up blotted away with cheap tissue used in unisex stalls in clubs that have no understanding of the concept of privacy*.

We  embarked on a journey of fearlessness and no tears, my heart and I.

Along the way, we met a girl who made it her mission to dig deep into my life with all her pesky light and sunshine, to uncover the things that I refused to talk about and feel about  and be about. She wanted my tears even more than I did not want them. This is also because I wholeheartedly believe that the only acceptable place to snot-cry is in your therapist’s office because she is paid to see you like that. Yannow?

We had become the one others came to when they needed sense talked into their heads and hearts because all of theirs had been used up by men and women whose business it is to cloud judgment and bang their fists against resistance. We became a towering monument to clear-headedness and strength. To sense and sensibility. To not giving any fucks about love/lust fuelled promises whispered between lovers in the comfort of beds and borrowed couches. To pulling mates out of quicksand-like relationships. To burning bridges whilst chanting warrior songs about being stronger. (These songs may or may not have been by Britney Spears and Kelly Clarkson). We could show you the notches on our sword and shield. We did it selflessly, and selfishly. Selfishly, because we did not want to be the only ones standing alone and fighting alone, no matter how determined we were to remain that way. Selflessly, because Saviour Complex. Heady.

Until I met him. I always described him as my CPR. Brought me back from the dead. He rode in on a whirlwind of patience and understanding. Of charm in a language I understood and did not know I craved. Simplicity. He was by no means soft. He was a giant well versed in demolishing monuments like me. And demolish he did. Not with wrecking balls but with withdrawal and unavailability. With little pieces of himself whilst I gave everything. With subtle mind games and manipulative touches.

The trouble with allowing humans to be your lifeline is that they stop being your  lifelines. And you die.

My girl got her tears.

A few days after I burnt that bridge to stay alive, well, after he withdrew the air and theeeen I burnt the bridge, I had a post-bar heart to heart with my best guy friend. Listen, this guy is my ride or die and has been there through ALL of it and no, he isn’t one of those “he’s waiting to hit” fellas, “just biding his time ’till I’m ready to see him” fellas.

And he told me all the things I told my charges. He rescued me the way I rescued them and added me to the notches of his sword and shield. He walked with me through the Heartbreak aisle in the Life Store and helped me pick out the brick and mortar to rebuild the bits of my monument that the Whirlwind had torn down. We reinforced the structure with wariness and hesitation. With bitten tongues and chains to stop Heart and I from jumping too soon. When we were done, he added a big red flashing sign just above the plaque that read:

“This Monument Stands in Honour of A Warrior Who Fights Love”.

The flashing red sign reads

“Beware of trust Issues”.

For My Light and for My Builder.

The Empress.