What and How I Remember

This is how I carry you. I carry you in my bones. My sinew speaks your name and carries the pain of you into my fingers where it seeks a final escape, but I grab and pull you back into me, where you have always been held. 

I hold and nurture you so that I might justify my rage.

I grew up in a house reverberating with the anger of generations, carried from different continents to this new land, where the promise of escape from oppression or famine or fear proved empty at the least, and was replaced by a whole new kind of horror, a new seeking that left people I never met empty with longing for anything other than what they felt they had to settle for. This pain converged in my parent's house and held all of us within it. 

I left the house eventually, but this pain, your pain, came with me wherever I went. You were my constant companion, my personality, my aggressive nature. You made me interesting and frightening and sometimes to my great dismay, untouchable. This pain, you, and I, we would throw each other against people, walls, oppressive institutions, and while I never did, I always hoped to wear you out. I always hoped to figure out a way to elude you.

But this wretched illness is where I empty out.

I have been sick for several days and I wake to find an elephant sitting on my chest, my head being held in talons which at any moment might crush me utterly. I drink fluids, and rest, but nothing comes, until I bring this pain forth, and then everything. 

Everything that has been held, protected, and carried is now spilling out. I cry for hours, I sob and shake and feel this history move through my body. The next day, lighter, I cry more. I cry for another hour, again, heaving with sorrow and ache and the fear of not being loved.

And then it stops, and my head is clear and my chest can take in more air than I every thought possible, and I wonder if I am free because my body was finally sick of what my mind thought all these years was a good way to handle you. 

I can only hope I am free.

​At this point, I can only hope.

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What can I say? Sickness does strange things to me, like changing my writing style completely and making me a stranger to myself. Go figure. You like it? Let me know. I would love to hear from you. Also, on the 20th, it will be four years since I started this blog. That makes me pretty happy. If you have been here since the beginning, thanks for hanging in. If you have joined me lately, welcome, and for those of you who have come at any time in between, I appreciate you.