Her Story/His Story

         Frustration bleeds thru the ringing phone, setting already frazzled nerves to dancing for cover. Tension erupts upon answering, not knowing what to expect this time. As the tears flood her ears, the desperation is heard in his entangled words. It is hard for her to make sense of the garbled language that bubbles up through his throat and leaves his quivering lips.

            Understanding grows thinner with each outburst that she willingly takes from him. She feels sorrow for his twisted versions of things that are so very real to him. Rationality is impossible for him to comprehend and she cannot put her mind into the same dark twisted place where he does what we call surviving.

            Kind gestures on her part seem like fire darts aimed at his heart to him. She cries silent tears for the misunderstanding that breeds in his burnt mind. He needs doctors and medicines that he just won’t accept. On rare occasions of clarity, he has said to her, “look…I know I need to be in the hospital, you know I need to be in the hospital but, I am not ready to go yet. I am scared.” This causes her bloodshot blue eyes to well with more brine that drips down a sad face burning new tracts into her skin as exhaustion escapes her body with a silent sigh and a heavy droop of her tired and aching shoulders.

            You see…she loves him so much that it causes her physical pain, her body contracts trying to control convulsive sobs (much like a withdrawal of sorts) that would overtake her soul if she let them. Although they are separated by many miles, she feels his pain deep within her being; her heart hurts in ways that even she cannot understand. Connected, forever connected by an invisible umbilical that feeds them both; they are soulmates who can never heal without each other and can’t live with each other in his present state. She will continue to try to be his ‘rock’ and he will keep on leaning on her weary soul while refusing her love. She used to wonder why she held on so tightly to her love when it hurt so much…not anymore tho…she just accepts that this is her fate, her soulmate whom she can neither have nor escape.

            His problems were not always so intense, they were somewhat controlled until he made new friends. These new friends introduced him to another ‘friend’. This one was disguised, pledging to make him feel good again, beyond his wildest desires. It actually made him want to live out his wildest desires (fantasies) and he tried. God he tried and they almost killed him. He was awake for days on end with an energy that was extraordinary. Living a fast and fragmented life, he seemed to think all was under control, he was invincible in his own mind and his own mind was out of control. When his friend was out of pocket, he fell miserably fast, blaming all his loved ones for all his failings. He became increasingly angry, destructive, and mostly, self-destructive.

            He claimed that no one loved him enough, or our definition of love was different than his. An all or nothing kind of existence was expected from all of us as well as making him the center of our universe. He never knew unconditional love as a child, so when it was offered to him, he didn’t recognize it for what it was. He couldn’t accept love on blind faith he needed proof.          

            As the two years of marital separation passed, he went through intense swings in his moods. At first, he showed the world how he reveled in his new found freedom…then he slowly fell into a pit of lonely despair. His ‘friend’ became the instigator in many fights with his loved ones. Playing devils advocate was fun for this friend/fiend but it caused sorrows that are difficult to paint in these words and on these pages. Black holes of never ending anger that tried to suck the rest of us in with its brute force. Long nights of night terrors that tore at the fabric of life carrying into the daylight hours with faces that were drawn and haggard. New wrinkles that formed on a sad face from the constant dragging down of his hateful spewing of words that pierced into her no longer tender ears.

            His ‘friend’ merely laughed louder as he increased his hold upon this tortured soul, I swear that deep in the darkest corners of the night I can still hear his echoes as he tries to bend me and make me break once and for all.

            Time passed in painful eternity that seemed stretched beyond the point of breaking. Her tears appeared to know no end, no bounds, and continued to leave salt marked trails down her saddened countenance. She trudged on through the day to day necessities of life, even managing a gentle smile backed with a full throated laughter that resonated in the air from time to time. His desperation stayed on its angered path trying to destruct her soul and pull her to his evil minded will. She delivered an ultimatum, she had the strength of truth in her voice but her heart was quivering with the fear and pain of it all. She told him that if he didn’t go into the hospital now, today, not to ever call and tell of his love again. He called back twice to make sure that she was sticking with this decision, she told him yes.

            Then the phone went silent.

It started deep in her core, like an earthquake, bubbling up from within to reach the outer limits of her body. It erupted with a violence that caught her totally off guard, shaking in spasms and convulsions as the rivers ran from ghostly blue eyes. No, she didn’t cry, she died. Inside, her soul shattered into a million pieces, piercing her heart with tiny slivers of glasslike precision. She howled into the air like a wolf, screaming his name as he made his choice and went and met his friend one more time.

The name of this fiend matters not, it just doesn’t matter. If they get their sharpened claws into an unsuspecting victim they won’t turn loose until made to do so. Killing more than the victim themselves, it kills the whole family in ways that even the fiend cannot imagine. Causing vile and inherent pains to rip at loves seams, chewing them beyond repair like a pit bull. Filling hearts with a venom that poisons slowly so as to lengthen the dying to a purposeful torture.

I am she and I live. I cry as you look upon my face every day but you cannot see my invisible tears. I bring you these words not to enlighten your minds but to lessen my load, to ease my burden so that I may continue to live. Breathe in my pain and exhale the essence that I need to survive. Eat my words, chew them and roll them around in your agile minds to put meaning to them. 

Swallow my pain for me so that I can endure more.                                           

I am she and I live.