geography of grief

Years of navigating through land mines mean dread and caution hover close, even as we eat and socialize. One moment on solid ground, then in a heartbeat it's all gloom and doom. 

All eyes swivel toward me. Noise level goes from chaotic cacophony to zero. My ears pop as I gulp for air. Locked in a bubble of building pressure. 

dark weird wallpaper

I view the living as dead and gone - analyzing their distinctive anatomy and facial features. Clinical and removed as these are filed away for future reference. Suspended in a strange soft cloud of too weird. 

"What did you say?" O oh! What DID I just say? I can't recall. Under their unrelenting focus I panic and flail. I have no clue what I just said. 

"Repeat what you just said." Yikes! Commands give me hives. They feel like heavy dungeon doors, a long way down, deep twisting tunnels. My senses shut down - one. . . .by. . . .one. All goes dark, leaving me scrambling in a void - truly lost. 

Mouth gapes open. Jaw drops. I gasp for breath. Voice gone - not even a croak or a groan to offer up. They turn away - triumphant. 

"I thought so!" They sneer in sharp snark as they leave. I pray I've dodged the bullet. 

. . . . 

The longer we spend apart, the harder it is to return. The harsher the rub on tender and exposed parts. The bigger the resistance to input. The sorer the spots of vulnerability. The thicker the amor required. The heavier its burden to bear. 

Family stories perpetuated in a long sad string of drawn out history. Bound in convoluted karmic strings. 

The ones we love most can come closest. Allowed to enter our inner ring. Getting to the core of what matters most. Heaven protect us from petty mundane lives. Loaded with years of compromised considerations. 

Always there's the black sheep. The sacrificial lamb. The bully. The catalyst. The joker. The wild card. The blamed, the blamer, the blaming. A constant whipping post. 

Here we go round the deep dark bush. In a circling dance of victim-rescuer-persecutor. Repeated misremembered tales. Carved deep and bloody into our collective psyches. 

A broken record of plots and schemes. A torture chamber of wish fulfilling fantasies. Dark. Dangerous. Dire. Who dares break out of the mold? Break free? Break away? 

Live among the demons we know? Devils of our own choosing? The tried and tested? Or feel our way through the discomfort of what's fresh and new? Untried and unfamiliar? 

Head toward the light - releasing, relaxing, letting go.