Nancy's Confrontation

Hard life, hard drugs, hard times,
Hard people.
One things leads to the next until I’m trapped.

That moment yesterday,
When you told me I was wearing armor—
When you told me I was afraid to be vulnerable—
When you told me I was lost—
How could you possibly know so little?
And yet so much…

I was looking into your uncomfortably brown eyes.
They were bright, warm, soft, understanding, penetrating.
Your majestic eyes are not as dark as mine,
Which are darker than most, nearly black--
Screaming insecurity,
Fear
Pain
Bewilderment
And, yes thank you, vulnerability.

Sometimes, when I look in the mirror
Deep into my own eyes,
My bones shake with apprehension, concern.
Some say eyes are the windows to one’s soul,
But this could not be true
Because I believe that my soul is genuine—
Seemingly tortured, perhaps, but gloriously dynamic and sometimes courageous.
And when I look into my own eyes, I see only a
Lost child, naïve, frightened, betrayed.

What did you see when you looked at me yesterday?
Did you see my weakness, my courage, both?
The vulnerability was something I had never seen in myself,
Though now it seems so obvious,
So obvious that at that instant it thrust me into a whirlwind of memories,
Images of myself in pristine moments of vulnerability:
Collapsing down upon my pile of laundry,
Pulling to the side of the road to catch my breath,
Falling to my knees behind the closed door of my dorm room,
Curling into the fetal position under my bed,
Beating my hands against the walls of the shower stall,
Uncontrollably crumbling into hysteria while my mind disintegrates,
Surrenders to the nightmares,
Until my armored, vulnerable, lost eyes run dry.

What powerful words could have driven me to such a lucid and painful daydream—
And continued to enslave my thoughts for hours after your departure.
I went back to my room and reflected upon my problems with
Drugs
Alcohol
Depression
Trust
Myself
My body
My parents
My friends
My direction (or lack there of)

And when I did not know what to think, I succumbed to my tears.
I broke down and cried.
Again.

I never used to cry until this past year—not at anything.
Now when I’m alone, I cry at unexpected times and, usually, uncontrollably.
But when I can cry no more and my sinuses are throbbing with
The weight of me being an internalizer,
I think of some very powerful words by Mary Anne Radmacher—
A quote the universe sent to me in a great time of need:

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.”

And I will…try.

Earthworms

This morning it rained for only about an hour.
Deep gray clouds rolled over the city,
Engulfing this quiet campus with light sprinkles of
Loss and rebirth,
Driving the meaningless earthworms from their
Warm sanctuaries within the dirt
To the cold and inevitable death sentence
Of the red brick pathways.

Now the skies are clear
Except for the puffy, white communities of moisture
Hovering in the distance
Behind the Ritchie Center,
Behind the highway, breathing with the hum of passing nobodies,
Behind the city, bustling with almost-weekend excitement.
And I sit here, huddled against the retaining wall of Sturm
Next to the pile of worms I kicked aside,
The poor, pathetic manifestations of life
That only hours ago were writhing in vulnerability,
Exiled from their protective womb in the earth
And greeted not with love, comfort and the promise of tomorrow,
But rather with a futile plea for life…
A plea to remain on a journey whose goal is
Nothing more than continued existence.
And I can’t help but think that
The only difference between us is their blessed ignorance
And my tortured awareness.
Their bliss and my pain.

Maybe…
It is time for me to leave.