Hyde's Bride

They Get Mad At Me

“But I am just going to say it.

I used the upstairs public bathroom yesterday to avoid the smells of extreme circumstantial use by the homeless downstairs.

But then I was trapped upstairs in a smaller bathroom, unsure what was happening in the stall two doors over with two people engaged in longterm shuffling, groaning, and whispering.

People in desperate need find places to do things that the average people still trying to mask as ‘normal’ try to avoid if and when at all possible.

That’s me, for sure.

Don’t involve me.

Please, please, please – and definitely not directly.

If I cannot help, it is a torment to expose me.

Being wired to extreme empathy as a healer tells me too much information about smells and needs for sanitary assistance not being properly tended to.

What happened next was that the entire room suddenly became flooded to choking with one of the worst smells of long-baked unwashery that I have ever encountered.

I could not help but quickly (though quietly) scramble-fumble out of my stall and stuffing my face into my jacket just to be able to breath as I fled the bathroom for likely the first time ever not washing my hands.

I beelined, instead, to where I knew that I could find a courtesy sterile wipe and tissue by the clerk’s desk.

Reflecting back upon the maintenance care needed for that person being helped to use the bathroom – and clearly not being tended to consistently – threatened to send me into a despair cycle that I am still trying to dodge and out-distance on this second day returning for help with my paperwork.

I have since been having difficulty subduing a type of deep keening inside – for that person, for me, and for our society barely hinging on the brink of unnecessary and wasteful political disasters.”

Hyde's Bride

What Gets Me

Being in the library, she encountered those left behind, and it was so very hard to find herself also in that category – although she still fought off looking the part.

She had done all and more to ensure that others were protected, and now with her injuries, the cold wind into her coat often felt sharper.

And she could often feel within her just under the surface a high keening of mourning worry.

Hyde's Bride

AckNowLedgement

They had not been so corrupted when she had known them, thus she had not been naive to believe in their good aspects.

It was just extremely shocking to realise later how much the matriarch’s and her support in love had kept them on track.

And when the matriarch had passed, they all chose to absolve any adherence, and instead embraced anarchy’s tyranny and cast about blame for their grief and losses.

Hyde's Bride

A Spell’s Unbinding

In her mind, the arrow tip’s shard at last began working its way to the surface, extruding from imbedment in her heart.

She could not yet feel any relief, for so long had her tissues been frozen in shock and fear’s caution to carefully contain its position and keep it from tearing her apart.

She then buried it at their once matriarch’s grave, the place where she had tearfully and wretchedly prayed for guidance when all had turned insane and then, soon after, the truth behind lies had revealed itself to her.

The matriarch could cleanse the shard, seal it, and neutralize that negative energy, blessing the woman by their once mutual alliance to carry on with her own story, no longer bound to that family’s tragedies.

Hyde's Bride

For Her Honor

She remembered when their matriarch was in the hospital, and her son’s wife tried to grab her purse to seize power of attorney.

“No…she put me in charge of her purse,” said the granddaughter-in-law (which had been true because she expected they’d take advantage in her moment of weakness), seizing the sachel back and calling for protective backup.

It was an act that later set the rest of the family against her

Hyde's Bride

Bearing Down

‘I need you to help me – NOW!”

She wanted to scream it – to tear apart the silence with it – but hated that she needed.

So she didn’t.

She wouldn’t even speak it.

She didn’t feel that she had the right to.

She couldn’t even whisper it to anyone or anything as tears slowly traced her frustration.