trap door

We live standing on a trap door. Some people spend their whole lives just standing on it, never knowing it is a trap door. It may as well be granite. For some the door swings open and they fall to their deaths. Swallowed whole. Some of us catch the edge on the way down and hang there by our fingertips. We can see the raging river beneath our feet. Hear its roar. It is possible to hang there for years. We look like everyone else, but inside we are inches from being consumed. Fingers white and trembling. Trying to hold on a little longer. Sometimes we can even climb back up and get the door closed. But once you know you're standing on a trap door nothing is ever the same. If you can't trust the ground you can't ever rest.

someone dies

In my favorite Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin is standing at the top of a snowy hill with his sled. The hill is obviously too dangerous for sledding, but Calvin thinks "go ahead, you'll make it." and "It's probably not as bad as it looks." He turns to us and says out loud "I think my brain is trying to kill me."

My brain is like that. I've begun to realize that my body is trying to kill me too. Consuming itself. It won't sleep. Muscles old rusty barbed wire from year after year stiffening to receive the next blow. You never know where it will come from or when. I've spent my whole life trying to be ready for the next attack. To brace myself. Then each one catches me unaware. Someone leaves. Someone dies.

Then I realize that the person who left wasn't who I thought they were anyway. Did I even know them? I find out they lied. I find out I lied to myself. How does one grieve the loss of a person that was part real and part made up? Which part was real? Which part did I love?

told her I would do better

When I was 12 I came home from school on my bike and my mother told me to pack a bag. She was taking me to the psychiatric ward to stay for a while. I've never been able to cry, but I cried that day. I said please. Told her I would do better. Not that I ever really understood what I was doing wrong. I just knew she hated me. She seemed to have plenty of reasons. Once I adjusted to the hospital think I liked it. It was predicable. Quiet.

still in the celophane

I think I mentioned that I died when I was eight. My parents ended an alcoholic, abusive marriage when I was seven. My father took my brother and I on weekends for almost a year. Fishing. Model airplanes. Then one Saturday morning I went outside to wait for him only to find a box on the porch. Everything we had left at his apartment. No note, no phone call, just a box of our stuff. I had saved up and bought him a model airplane for Christmas. He left it on the porch with everything else. Still in the celophane. I think I was confused and wounded by the marriage and divorce, but still struggling on - still alive - until that day. That was the day I knew for sure that no one wanted me. I never saw him again.

the bomb

In the late 90s I helped start a conservative, non-denominational, bible church. It was the pastor that drew people. Drew me. He was disciplined, knowledgeable, dynamic. Someone who was actually winning. The church was hard work, always struggling to get people to be more committed, to have higher standards. And all the while there was a ticking bomb right in the middle of us that we never heard. Sometimes the ticking was pretty damn loud. We didn't want to hear it. After eight years, the bomb finally went off. Super pastor was caught in a five year secret affair. Didn't come clean - caught. On video. By his own son.

Over the next few months as I and the other three leaders were trying to pick up the pieces, I began to realize just how far off track we were. This disciplined, put-together, super pastor had trained us to be just like him. We were pouring our efforts into following rules, looking good on the outside, saying the right words, building up our club. Thinking we were doing something good. Really we were providing super pastor with puppydog devotion while he lied and sneaked. His fools.

After the bomb went off, I quickly got to the point where I couldn't do it anymore. Told the other leaders that I would finish out my turn and then they would have to replace me. When I got the the end I fell on my face and couldn't get up for a long time. Three years. I was grieving the loss of an illusion. Realizing that for years we had been on the wrong path. Making an institution instead of a family. At the same time, the other leaders were realizing that their little church was great and had finally purged out their problems; sinning pastors and undedicated leaders. Not one of them will speak to me now.

something wrong with his eyes

Whenever I look in the mirror I am surprised. Confused. Because sometimes I see someone who looks good. Interesting. A person who feels deeply. Other times he looks damaged. Ugly. Something wrong with his eyes.

stirred with a spoon

Sometimes I think I'm ruined inside. I look in there and see a tangled mess. Like my insides were stirred with a spoon. Everything that goes in rots and turns to poison. I was able to collect and store the poison for years, but now I am totally saturated. I can't ingest any more, but it won't come out.

fight back

I've read stories about kids that are abused, hated. I like the stories where the kids get angry and fight back. At least when they get old enough. One boy was leaned over a fence post every week on the walk to church with his dad and molested. When he got big enough, he turned around and told his dad "If you ever touch me again I will kill you." His dad never touched him again.

I never fought back. My mother screamed at me that I was what was wrong with her life. That I was unhappy because of myself. A fucking little bastard. Spit in the corners of her mouth. Wild, insane eyes. Shaking with rage. She would scream "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" and then retreat sobbing to her bedroom. The victim. It didn't even occur to me to resist. To question the truth of her viewpoint. I was already dead by then anyway. Years dead. I never did anything. I never said anything. Never got in trouble at school. Compliant. I just tried to be as grey as I could. I didn't want anyone else to hate me.

grey

It took me thirty years to even notice that I had turned grey; hidden from the world. It happened automatically. It turns out that I wasn't really grey anyway. Everyone could still see me. They just thought I didn't like them. That I was a jerk. A snob. All I really accomplished by being grey was to isolate myself.

no one can see it

I used to be dead. Died when I was eight. But in the last few years I have started to revive. Now instead of being dead, I bleed. Leave a big puddle under my desk at work some days. No one can see it. I tried to go to church a year or so ago, but all I could hear was the blood dripping on the metal folding chair I was sitting in. Plink... plink... plink...