Make it a double

As I’m sitting here slurping my nth gin in tonic,

vision blurred,

mind blurred,

feelings blurred,

thoughts blurred,

yet somehow still able to exercise my favorite past time;

people watching,

this particularly cute 70 year couple, were holding hands as they walked by.

How...rude.

These are the moments I feel most schizophrenic.

A large part of me wants to ask the waitress for a bucket. For the only reasonable response would be yack. Get it out of my system and move on.

But then, there is this little voice inside that says:

isn’t that the dream?

Isn’t that the goal?

What else is happiness?

A job?

A house?

A car?

No. Someone to love.

Someone

To

Love.

It’s ironic really, because the image of me screaming at the top of my lungs is still hanging in the air. The guilt of my actions continues feel so heavy my breathing has changed.

That's what the gin and tonics have been for of course, a prescription for the pain but the symptoms aren’t subsiding.

Let’s make the next a double.

But it’s as if while I was screaming, my 'knowing' or my subconscious, whatever you want to call her, was whispering ever so kindly:

'So do you really think this is how you will make all your dreams come true?'

It’s strange really.

I’d gotten so good at expecting everything to fall apart, I had no idea what to do when it didn’t. All my heart has been begging for was someone not to walk away in disgust when my sharp, degrading tongue came out to play. Knowing it was probably them who provoked me into this corner of self-hatred anyways.

But let’s leave excuses at the door.

I needed to be seen with all the gory bits in order to feel loved.

Or else what were they really there for?

This carefully crafted image I had presented like a sales pitch, begging them to see through it?

Or were they just waiting for the second shoe to drop, not knowing I’d throw that shoe straight at their face?

Almost like testing their patience.

Even worse, testing their pain tolerance.

Do you have the ability to withstand this much intensity?

If not, you are too short to ride the roller coaster you were signing up for.

As the famous ponytail would say;

Thank you, next.

'How cruel' said my knowing.

Shall we call her Betty? I always imagined her being like Betty White or something along those lines. Older. Wiser. More fun. More firm. Less desperate.

For love that is. Less desperate for love.

But where had that desperation gotten me?

Lots of experiences, I had tried on almost every personality without fail, but without success either.

Whats a girl to do?….Girls?

Nah, been there. Done that.

The one thing I was sure of was men were my liking.

It was my taste that I was worried about.

And the most concerning of all was the nauseatingly obvious fact that I was the single common denominator between all my shared relationship endeavors.

Uggfff...Now that’s a hard pill to swallow.

My pride takes a hit on that one.

It seems until I understand how to love the gory bits myself, I don’t suppose I can expect anyone else to do it for me.

But fast forward a bit, I guess it also comes down to finding someone who will see the gory bits and love them. Not just tolerate them. But admire them. Because it had gotten me to where I am now. And I wouldn't be this creature without them.

There must be someone out there who will know that it is just my little inner child throwing a tantrum. Or who is afraid. Or mostly likely of all, is just really really sad.

Too sad to bear, so screaming out of anger seems more tolerable.

Anger is more tolerable than sadness.

Why is that, I always wondered?

A thought for another time I suppose, since my mouth starts salivating when the waitress arrives with my fresh gin and tonic. 2 limes. Perfect amount of ice. The glass had just started sweating.

And this time, it’s a double.

A Parisian affair

He had taken me to a famous Parisian Cemetery... 

After making love 4 times in last 8 hours, barely getting any sleep, he had the audacity to drag me out of bed to take me to what he thought every American women would want;

Brunch. Bless him. 

Afterwards, my belly was full and my passion was ravenous but now I was staring at the famous singer Edith Piaf’s grave.

After brunch he took me for a long walk through the city. He was not one to conserve his energy. Burning the candle from both ends as they always say.

We ended up at the famous Cimetière du Père Lachaise. Edith's name was the first to catch my eye. I remembered her songs. Daydreaming.

Walking by one famous person after another, it seemed they had died just to be buried in this 5 star Parisian cemetery. And with it came it’s own arrangement of status. They were not small gravestones; more like monuments. Each person feeling the need to have a bigger mansion on top of their resting dead body than the other.

‘What were the property taxes like?’ I wondered giggling. 

It never ends, I thought. Not even in death. Is it true that we must find peace before we die or else we take this absurdity with us? 

He had been holding my hand and arm so tightly, we had to walk hip to hip. I’d never had a man want to be so close to me all the time. It’s like I had something he desperately wanted. My youth, maybe? It felt stupidly obvious, but as if being among the dead made us realize how alive we were. And perhaps for him, he wanted to feed off of the feeling of having life ahead of you, rather than being in the middle of it. He was almost 20 years my senior. It was a first for me. Letting someone take care of me like that. Letting someone adore me. Fawn over me.  Truly releasing control.

He never smiled with his teeth, and this moment was no different. He was wearing his usual smirk while staring at me. As if he always knew something I didn’t. I liked feeling like there was always a surprise around the corner. 

He grabbed my neck. His hand was twice my size, and the initial danger of his hand wrapping around the side of my neck gave me a rush. He pulled me close to his body. My body was pressed against his.

 “Give me your tongue” - he uttered while turning my head to face him.

I wasn’t sure if my giggle was due to the preposterous statement or that I felt silly doing something so sexual in front of poor Edith. 

I felt his excitement. I obeyed. I opened my mouth, and he leaped in. His mouth opening wide in order to let his tongue play with mine. He sucked on it, then twirling it around. His lips met mine, and he pulled me closer towards him. How? I had no idea.

I never understood what it meant to be truly one with somebody. But we were one in that moment. Inhaling and exhaling the same air. Moving in unison. It was like a dance.

He pulled my hair, grabbing it, tilting my head backward, exposing my neck. He licked it from my collarbone to my ear. Slowly. It was excruciating.

Goosebumps climbed from my arms through the nape of my neck and over my scalp. 

He started to shove me towards a chateau grave of Marcel something or other. 

He turned me around, clasping his hands on my hips to pull me against his.

I felt his excitement. He was hard. Full on hard. His hands wondered.

He collected my arms, putting them behind my back. He grabbed my hands and placed them over his erection. He wanted me to feel his desire. He held them there. I started gliding my fingertips along his shaft. My head resting backwards on his shoulder, exposing my neck which he was sucking, and with his free hand he grabbed my left breast. 

He would’ve fucked me right there. I liked that. I enjoyed that kind of power. 

But I didn’t want an audience. 

Not even a dead one. 

‘The French...’ I thought, ‘Kinky...’ 

For all the hearts

There is a vastness where my mother grew up.

An Emptiness.

Fields.

Just fields.

Fields beyond the eye can see.

It’s something I yearn for.

This ability to look far far away.

I hold her pain in me.

And my grandmothers fears.

And my great grandmothers uneasiness around men.

They may not be feelings that I personally associate with,

but nevertheless,

Yes,

nevertheless,

still,

they live inside me.

Deep inside my gut.

My instinct has been tainted by them.

Deeply discolored.

But not like the rainbow.

More shadows of gray.

And not the light ones.

Where my ovaries are located and my eggs live, these feelings of theirs have taken residence.

They have nested themselves in there.

Like fungus, they have grown.

Uncontrollably.

Moving on from generation to generation.

Latching onto someone else.

Disrupting the balance.

It’s beautiful as much as it is tragic.

I love it and I hate it.

I admire it and I condemn it.

For I have gotten ALL the survival aspects that come with it.

They come included,

free of charge.

the strength,

the resilience ,

the persistence,

the ability to march forth after being torn apart,

emotionally ripped to pieces,

and yet,

without so much as a dent in their feelings, they know responsibility.

Life must somehow go on.

Even broken.

Especially when broken.

Or else it won’t pass.

Time won’t pass.

Standing still with that kind of pain would be unbearable.

But with them also lies the all their unlived lives.

The unfelt feelings.

All the broken hearts that didn’t even get to love first.

Just yearning.

Pure yearning.

Agony.

And here I am and I feel this need to live and breath it all for them.

In order to give it all some kind of justice.

All the pain

and all the suffering

had to have some worth.

Worth something.

Something bigger.

I know I won’t be able to live up to all these dreams and desires that live within me.

But by god, I damn sure know I will do my best to feel

every

single

being,

into their deepest molecule,

into its deepest facets.

Because if all this has done anything; It’s taught me, everyone and I mean every single one,

deserves to be seen and heard and feel love in this world.

In some form or another.

It’s quite simple really.

Love.

It’s the middle, beginning and end.