Cross-Trainers

I was starting to wonder if these were simply delusions. It had been so long since someone had taken me by the hand, but perhaps that’s my mind playing tricks on me as I reached out and felt his warm calloused hand in mine. I remember as a child waiting for my father to pick me up from pre-school. He never came. I remember telling the teacher he would arrive, after all, he had promised. But there I stood on the curb refusing to return to the warmth of the classroom. I truly believed he would show. Even as the lady with the lipstick on her teeth arrived and told me I would have to go with her. I sat on the curb and began to cry. What would he think if I wasn’t where he told me to wait?

She gripped my wrist hard and dragged me away. I knew if I were gone he wouldn’t know where to look. Somehow it never occurred to me that he wouldn’t look anyhow. And as I sat in the back of her car, I was sure I saw him and yelled for her to stop. She slowed the vehicle while looking back at me and curtly said, “he’s not there and he is not coming.”

I found myself questioning my reality today, so unsure of my inner voice since it had betrayed me before. Actually that’s not entirely true either. I had hand-selected all of them, as if I needed to replicate all that I had known. I instinctively was drawn to the ones in the cross-trainers. First there was the beautiful boy who kissed me sweetly with one foot in another bed. How naïve I was to think I needed to change. Then there was the angry man from the east who had promised to never let me go even as he kissed me goodbye on his way to work with his suitcase neatly packed in the car. I called no one as I waited day after day with no hint as to where to find him. Then there was the monkey man who didn’t run but rather shoved. Even as I clung to him after tripping and falling, he smacked my hands away leaving me to fall even harder and giving him a bigger headstart. And now I wondered as I felt the warmth of the Viking’s skin against my palm how long would it be before he made the same promise to return even as he let go and walked away.

I found myself whispering this morning unable to find my voice. I sometimes wondered if the in-between time created the distance or perhaps it was the time together that pulled him away. What else could I think when left with my own assumptions? I experimented last week with words I had not spoken before in years. I was perplexed by how much the silence hurt. This was no longer grade school, so I couldn’t ask anyone to pass him a note in class. Remember those notes, the ones with the check boxes with names and questions such as “who do you have a crush on” or “will you go steady with me.” I was always passing those notes for others secretly hoping one of them would be for me. But there was no note, just a change in topic.

I began to look at my note, the email that I had written weeks before sitting patiently as a draft. I stopped myself as the cursor rested on send. I had always clicked send in the past and found myself much like the same little girl in the back of the sedan driving away from my nursery school. The difference is that I knew he wouldn’t be coming if I pushed send. There would be no tears, no betrayal, or abandonment. Just like the rest, I could give him the out I had convinced myself he needed just as I had imagined my father felt watching me being taken away.

Drowning

My mother abandoned me at the sound of my first cry. When asked, she described me as colicky and inconsolable. She would pass by my crib yelling at me to hush. I asked my grandmother about this recently over dinner. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand and softly said that I was a vivacious little girl. Her eyes glimmered as she described how independent I always was. After saying the word independent, she corrected herself and added, “fearless.” She reminded me that after the exhaustion set-in, I always returned to the comfort of her arms or nestled comfortably in her husbands lap for a nap. She described me like a kitten climbing up the curtains to the point of collapse. Then like my cross-eyed beauty, I would settle close to her nearly purring with content.

She loves to tell the tale of me climbing up the highest structure at the children’s playground and sitting there while she pleaded for me to come down. She’d even plod my older brother to climb up to get me but he was too scared. Eventually a stranger would have to get me. And after touching the ground I would rush to my grandmother and hold her tight. I loved her smell of ivory soap and schmaltz. And she would hold me so tight and quietly plead with me to never leave her like that again. She always reminded me I was loved.

Now as an adult, I no longer climb walls. Rather I have built them up like some impenetrable fortress, complete with a moat. Like a bad Disney tale, I am the king with a moat around my kingdom and I can’t swim. And worse, is I have only grown more afraid of the water as I got older. I wonder what happened to the fearless girl unafraid of climbing the highest peak. The little explorer who would stay out past sunset just to catch air one more time on her skateboard. I suppose too many times I ventured out into the cold dark water never to find the shore. Or perhaps the times I had looked for a hand to reach out to me, it never showed.

I found myself drowning today in a sea of bad memories and moments in time that I realized I don’t ever want to relive. And as I cried on the phone from the bathroom in the diner, the voice on the other end gently advised me that it is the walls that needed to go, but the moat could continue to stay.

Morning Fog

The roar of his engine came sooner than I had expected. It seemed like forever as I waited for him to knock on my door. I had held my breakdown for hours now. The nightmares had started weeks ago and I was operating on little sleep. My sense of security gone, I found myself reaching in strange places for comfort. Was it really just a year ago I was sitting in front of a body of strangers giving testimony? The word testimony seems so strange. In reality it was my life. I wasn’t reading a fictional tale from a book. I was reciting details of my life, while these five people sat across from me taking notes. I still find it perplexing that I can describe precisely what I smelled while it happened as if the smell still lingered on me like stale cigarette smoke from a bar. As I think about that day 20 years ago, I can still feel the restraint around my wrists and the tightening of my chest as I struggled to breathe.

The knock is harder now as I quicken my pace to the door. I open the door and he barely makes it inside as I collapse in his arms like a child exhausted by my own inner tantrum. I sob in his arms on my floor for what seems like hours but was really only minutes. And he just rocks us back and forth while quietly soothing me. The moment interrupted as he offers to get me a tissue. He lends me a hand to help me up as he makes his way down my hall toward my bathroom and I crawl on my couch only to have the cross-eyed beauty jump up and gently scratch at my lap. She nestles on my legs with her head pushed up against my stomach as if to hug me. And he returns with a roll of toilet paper that he hands me as he takes his seat next to me. I knew what he would ask me next. It’s the same question I get asked every year: “have you thought about seeing someone?”

Truth is I have. Off and on for years, I have sat across from strangers and recounted my story. I began to feel as if I had no other tale to tell and a few years ago, I decided to take a new approach to this time of year; denial. It came in the form of being too busy. I could excuse the exhaustion, because I could relate it to all that I was doing. This year is no different as I find myself racing to performances and social engagements. But the memory of the hearing almost seemed too fresh to deny. I could still see the face of the man that changed my world years ago and the smirk on his face. And I could still hear his mother’s voice as she yelled at me for ruining his life. I was unable to muster a word then as I wanted to tell her about how many times I had contemplated ending my own. I wondered how she could imagine I was really living after what her own flesh and blood had done to me. I almost felt jealous of her ability to deny, it was so much more deep-seeded then my own.

I had come to some terms at this point with my experience. I wasn’t a teenage girl anymore, although at times late at night, I still feel like that child; alone and terrified. Ironically, my angel must have known what was happening as my phone rang late night last night. I was relieved to see her name pop up on my caller ID. And the first thing she said was that she just felt compelled to call and check on me. I never understood how she always seemed to know those exact moments when a friend was all I needed. I hadn’t thought to call her myself, rather I had left a cryptic text for the Viking to find, still unable to clearly tell him what I needed. I guess I was just afraid of reaching out and learning that he wouldn’t want to be there for me. I wouldn’t have to wait for him to abandon me if I never set him up to be around.

I somehow managed to make it into my office, even with the bags clearly visible under my eyes. As I felt the cool air on my face as we rode his Harley across the Bay, I relaxed. For the moment I felt safe, knowing my angel was looking out for me and that he would be waiting for me outside my office to take me home. At last, there could be relief that there were no more trials or hearings, just memories that I could finally allow to drift away like the morning fog.

Cleaning

I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs as I watched him ride away. It was that time of year once again when the anxiety takes over and I forget how to sleep. And I was afraid for him to see. This is the part when I can hear my own voice telling me I am broken. Shattered pieces of porcelain that can never quite be put back together again, I was perpetually imperfect. And it was almost funny how I would try to create a façade of perfection by working constantly to craft a “perfect” home.

I clean. I literally am constantly cleaning. And just in case I haven’t emphasized this enough, I will not lay down in bed until my entire kitchen is spotless. I don’t know if I am seeing imaginary dust or make-believe dirt, but my house can’t seem to be clean enough. Today I ignored the tears as I cleaned my home from top to bottom never quite seeing it as clean. My fingers cracking from solvents, while I resisted wearing gloves. And minutes later I am on a chair vacuuming the ceiling because I just can’t stop. I ignore the commitments I have made, because I have to keep going.

I jokingly call this OCD, but really it’s not. I am not sure what to call this, since it’s not really nesting either. I am still cleaning as if no one will notice my personal imperfections in such a clean house. And I wonder if I should tell the Viking as he notices the overpowering smell of Windex upon entering my house. I have created an illusion of cleanliness when really I am just crazy. And all the while secretly hoping someone will compliment how clean my home is. It’s actually all quite pathetic, this desperation to be noticed even though there is no one here.

I wonder if my mother cleans for the same reason. While visiting an old friend yesterday he described my mother’s home as looking staged by a realtor. No sense of warmth or comfort, just everything neat and tidy and put exactly in the “right” place. Her house is immaculate. I remember as a child she used to sweep and mop the kitchen every night while my father watched television. She couldn’t stop either.

How did we get this way? Did she also yearn to have her parents tell her that she was loved, even just once? Just a week ago I listened as the Viking told his father he loved him while on the phone. I turned my head away afraid he would see my tears and then found myself absentmindedly picking imaginary lint off of my pants.

Fall

The orange radiance of the harvest moon illuminated my room like the glow of a lighthouse.
Lights and mirrors warning ships in the night
And it’s fall and I am waiting
Impatient for the shoe to drop
Too many years of chaos taught me nothing different
And I am restless

After all I am the girl who disappears in the middle of the night
The child on the buses going nowhere just so I wouldn’t have to be home
The young one hoping to be remembered
In the ruins of all that was destroyed
I forgot how to trust

And as I stared up at the brilliance above I couldn’t help but pray I wouldn’t run
Images never seen don’t need to be erased
And they never really were gone
Like little slivers on my skin there were still marks
Or sometimes they lingered like the feeling of a shiver, as the colors of the sky grow dark

Most of the time I just pretended
Under guarded smiles and a muted tongue
I thought the world conspired with me
Allowing me to hide my head under veils thankful to not be seen
But it was me that was hurting all along

After all a tree falling in the forest does make a sound
And even under the comfort of your skin I can forget how to breathe
Or perhaps it's just I am holding the air still inside
Listening for the sound of the other shoe to drop

Felony

The Viking was right, it was just a simple task: just write. And yet here I find myself unable to find the words as if they are lost somewhere like the keys to my house. The sadness is indescribable. My body feeling as if I had gained 20 pounds over night, I was unable to move under my own weight. My life has been marked my so much loss and here I was facing the loss of my friend for the last 12 years and I just break. I almost feel embarrassed to feel so much grief. Here she is laying in my lap quietly purring and content. And here I am asking myself if I am doing the right thing by letting her go. We have shared so much but I never thought we’d be sharing a diagnosis of cancer. Mine in remission and hers inoperable. I almost wished it were me instead because I could understand and I had no way of explaining to her what was going on. I still don’t speak tabby.

She was just a little grey ball of fur the day she entered my life. After a visit to a vet and a bath, I discovered she was white. Nicknamed by a friend in grad school, she came to be known as “the cross-eyed beauty.” And although she shared her first 8 years with a 120-pound shepherd, she knew she was bigger. And she was. She was my comfort in times of pain and she was the first to hear the good news of the day. She is the first to greet me in the early hours as the sun begins its ascent. And she is my melody at night as the rumble of her purr soothes me to sleep.

She ended 2008 on a diet and began 2009 unable to hold on to her weight. Despite her condition she still rules the roost. She has the energy to remind her sister that the bed is only big enough for her. And she still slaps me in the calf beckoning me to play a game of chase. She guards the house unaware of her size. Greeting strangers at the door and meowing at friends. While rehearsing and vacuuming she will stand her ground. And despite her crossed eyes, no bug has ever been safe.

And now I am faced with saying goodbye. Unlike her sister, I can plan for pictures and I can hold her one last time. And I can keep telling myself tomorrow and silently pray that the day will never come.

Cutting

The security of the Tenderloin has changed from the subtle reminder of the dangers of depression and a bottle to a world of temptation for a girl looking for an escape. Even as I stood today facing the peckerwood with the blade screaming his racist rant while his “old lady” reminded him we shared color in common, I found myself too numb to muster a sense of fear. It almost scared me how much I wanted to feel his blade. Desperate for emotions that don’t come easy, I spent my day faking a smile to every face I thought looked kindred in a crowd. I began to think about the last time I had longed to feel and absentmindedly began to touch the scars on my leg.

Fiending to cut is much like craving booze or drugs. I would desperately yearn for the euphoric feeling as I dragged a razor blade across my thigh. For many years, it was the only way I could cry. The first time I cut, I was only 12. Oddly, I remember the day I did it as if it happened yesterday. On a day that began as “normal,” I was alone in my room surrounded by my childhood friends of Barbie’s and stuffed animals. A latchkey kid since I was 5, my afternoons were typically filled with conversations with my fuzzy friends about my day. I couldn’t tell time yet nor did I know my home phone number, but I knew to put the key in the door and to find my after-school snack of oranges and peanut butter sandwiches in the refrigerator.

I had formed a semi-circle of blonde bodacious beauties as well as lobsters, bears, and dinosaurs around myself. There really weren’t any favorites, but only the big brown bear slept in my bed with me at night. I still have no clue what compelled me to leave my room and walk the narrow hallway back to the kitchen. I have no idea why I walked directly over the beige patterned linoleum floor to the silverware drawer. Instinctively I grabbed the metal butter knife and returned to my room as if I had done this before. After returning to my room I closed my door and sat on the carpet directly in the middle of the semicircle of my toys. I ran my finger up and down the blade pressing harder with each turn. Eventually my skin grew rough and began to peel revealing some of its layers. Next I ran the knife against my wrists. It wasn’t suicide I was after. I am not even sure I knew what suicide was. I just wanted to rub the knife against my wrists until I would see blood. My only witnesses from that day long gone after years of living in boxes turned their fur musty.

I remember finding it strange that the knife didn’t hurt. I also remember finding it curious I couldn’t cut into my wrists. That first time there was no blood. I couldn’t seem to drag the knife in deep enough, being too naïve to understand the dullness of the blade was conspiring against me. I continued this ritual for years trying different knives and different parts of my body. I slowly began to comprehend that my sick secret could only be kept if I opted for less obvious places. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the conspicuousness that led to my propensity for my thighs. My sensitiveness of my thighs finally allowed for me to feel the pain and the sight of the red seemed to bring relief.

And this was my ritual for more years than I care to confess. Nestled deep in my clothing drawer was my kit. I graduated from knives to razors. Disposable were my favorites as I took them apart and was left with 3 thin sheaths. Sometimes I couldn’t wait to get home from school just so I could reopen the wound I had just created the day before. It was years later before the wounds allowed me to cry. Finally I had the relief I was after marked by the color red and the salt of my tears.

And here I am years’ later yearning for this dope-fiend to participate in my ritual I had left behind long ago. As I felt the spray of his words of anger and could smell his own desperation, I recognized it was me who would be his co-conspirator in his crime. And the relief that I was after was not in the tip of his weapon, but rather in the knowledge that soon I would be walking away from all of this. Today I will mark my countdown to feel. My security no longer held in the hands of strangers or in the blocks of cement nor the graffiti on the walls in this land of the forgotten and suffering. I am still the latchkey kid opening my door to the semi-circle of fur. Now I have the cross-eyed beauty and her large loud friend greeting me as I make my meal. And there is comfort here nestled in my lap as the sound of a purr brings calm to the day.