She was afraid to be trapped again by another’s lack of comprehension and participation.
Even worse, though, was her past patterning of becoming blind to it to retain any comfort in closeness – unable to vocalize her needs as instincts clutched onto ‘safety’ – and the fear of loss if she shared that inside her needs were screaming.
She waan’t looking for an age, she was looking for the right fit.
And she had lost that time to live, caring for others in their complexities.
But if she found someone at that life stage, would they both be relegated to standard life-patterned growth rings?
What she’d been learning back then was how the push the ceiling off from everything.
But the people around her had just continued trodding scenarios unfolding slowly, as if sleepwalking.
A few gentle, quiet and tenuous but sharply clear-so-she’d-hear piano notes came from some chamber in her mind to her left, spanning across time and space.
But the plane shifted, cutting off the connection, and she couldn’t reach out to touch his crisped white collar.
A warm, dim-lit parlor opened where an umber-smoked piano beckoned soothingly and an older, stubble-faced confident was ready to lend an ear.
But she only played very litle and in private, and this person was not real in life to her.
Another room – a bar this time – filled to brimming with beautiful younger women, viscious in their competetive trimmings, ready to jeer and leer at her for trying.
Then that feeling over-riding everything as she turned another corner in the portal maze lacking any grounding.
“No, no more bathroom dreams please – where clothes go suddenly missing, and I’m scrambling.”
“It turns out that I have hip dysplasia.
My hound has it, too.
Only her left hip will twist out of its socket – even in her youth.
I have to rub her associated muscle spasms to get them to release her hip so that it again properly repositions when I see her limp.
Oh wait…
Both of mine now behave like this, too.”
“To make a broiled steak and baked zucchini boats!”
She loved his “bits.”
—
(Content of multiple meanings)
One day he turned to look – and found that she’d been waiting for him, tethered…
“Targeting the core truths of her own heart.”
“I’d like to say that I’m on top of things, but I just spilled half-n-half onto my favorite carpet, and I don’t want to put out ant traps tonight because I just want to let the evening end peacefully.
What really is ‘on top of things,’ anyway?
I think it’s time for me to change my interpretation and self expectations.”
She loved him.
Period.
Whatever that meant from here on forward, she would no longer fight it.
“”I was helped today in getting my car insurance turned back on so I can function, then told that I could pay it back when I am ‘flush.’
Flush…
How am I going to attain anything near that spectrum, again?”
“Of specifics in how I made it through past versions of rough patches.
I did not want a refresher – yet more advanced course in this.
‘No Sir…don’t like it.'”
“Wearing the poverty cap.”
“Maybe it isn’t all a game, but…”
“He got a ‘better’ offer…
He deserves ‘the best.'”
“I see younger couples carrying their toddlers for distance – and even a single mom with like a 6 year old as she carried a cumbersomly frontloaded baby carrier with a newborn in it.
My muscle synapsis scream as I phantom flex remembering how I, too, used to do such things.
And all I can think of while viewing these still-resourced wonders is, “Why aren’t you utilizing strollers and carts?”
“Well…apparently I had needed to cry a-lot, and its an indicator of love’s unrequited influence.”
“What is that again, exactly?:
“I was able to show you my rare phoenix, but mostly I have to scrabble for sustenance in one of my other forms – and there’s a lot of concern, worry, and even fear for my survival involved.”
“You were made for this,” giving barely a kiss, the brief visiting younger guy said.
And she realized she had to end it with him.
She was made for a bonding man.
“Liking these curls, though!”
“I can stand straight – because I fight hard every day to regain such brief moments.”
“Hello, Crone…
At least I beat you back for thirteen years.
Although it’s clear you haven’t fought fair.
What the fu** do you want from me?!
And those hype-rs applauding ” Ooh, make friends with your inner crone!” can just keep walkung past me.
There you go, now – just keep. On. Walkin’…”
“It’s kind of shitty having disability.
I already knew this from caring for others outside of it.
But gee, look – now I get to have the same prize!”
“I need to be provided for.
Not just want, now – but need.
Where’s pride and safety come in?”
Unrequieted love
Injuries twisting pain
Financial instability
“No…just fecking no.”
“No school work today, and no rest tomorrow as bills and services cancel.
There is no easy way through.
No wonder I just want to stop and not try anymore.”
Literally.
She’d seen him walking toward her, and then later walking away.
Would he return – or was that his only advancement?
“I must be losing weight because as I lean forward typing on my phone with arms resting on upper thighs, shadows cast from an overhead light show in extreme relief the myofascial damage done by the car accident to tissues on the inside of my upper arms and across my biceps.
I’ve got to try slide-cupping this, again”
“I have so that I may change.”
“‘Cause this. is. fun. – and oh-so se-xy!”
“Oh, yes….
They like to tell me that I am perimenopausal.
But I know for a fact that my temperature fluxing disregulations are from my neck injury, for I can induce these quite easily, accidentally.”
“I have flights of fantasy thinking that I could get to school early to catch up and be prepared adequately.
But then I remember no food is yet cooked for me to take with me, and earlier I heard the dogs hard-knock over something.
Another catastrophe waiting to greet as I foolishly think that I could be free to be?”
It wasn’t fair
No it wasn’t
How had he known
She had hidden locks
It was her own fault
For looking over then
Her own fault for
Honestly wondering
“We expect to be able to take ability to do such things for granted.”
“Oh, that’s right…
I helped change a series of light bulbs requirimg over head twisting motions.”
“I did spend time tending my roses that the dogs had shredded…”
“I don’t know what I did, but my anterior shoulder tendon attachment is pulling hatd and very angry.”
She couldn’t help it when the visions came clear.
Shivering from the forces warring within her, she turned instinctively to flee.
His hand shot out with lightning quickness, capturing her wrist gently but firmly.
“There’s no running from this,” his voice growled possessively, yet full of understanding.
“You and I…we both need to see this through.”
—
(Title of multiple meanings)
Candid Corvid Productions 