wishing will just keep me empty
2003-08-28 || 10:12 a.m.

The earth will smell and taste good. I will lie down. On my back, on my front, on my sides, letting my hair spread out. It won't matter if I get dirty or my clothes twist around under me. Then I will kneel and start to scoop the earth out with my hands. My nails will split and bleed, my hands will be grazed and bruised and it will take such a long time but it won't matter because all things that are worth it, take a long time. Probably I will have to use a spade at some point because I will begin to get impatient. Eventually I will have a lovely uterus shaped hole. I will have made my own place. I will take my clothes off and climb down into it. The earth is cold and wet this far down and it will feel cool and real against my skin. Then the earth that I piled up on the sides will start to trickle down onto me. It will feel friendly at first. But then it will come in a rush and I will be engulfed. It will fill my mouth and my nose and my ears, it will close my eyes. I will feel safe in a deep, dark cocoon and there will be a moment when the closeness makes me think I am loved. But my chest will start to burn because I cannot take a breath. My ears will ring, inside I will rupture and the earth wil choke the life out of me. It will press down on me almost as much as this isolation presses down on me.

And as the sun rises and the wind blows and the rain falls, the surface will look beautiful and untouched.

But another time I will dress in white. A white dress, so light in texture, almost like a slip. It will come down to just below my knees, or maybe a little bit longer. My arms will be totally free. And I will scrape all my long, dark hair back into a ponytail and I will just wear my crucifix around my neck. Then I will make all my exposed skin totally white, so white it is translucent. And my hair white too. And as I climb up the side of the church towards the point of the bell tower the only thing that will be seen will be the darkness of my eyes. Reflecting the blackness of my soul. And so I will stand on the edge in a moment of perfect symmetry. And my toes will curl in a point of beautiful agony as I hold on, and I will lift my arms out and up almost as if I am dancing once again.

And then I will jump.

And for a moment I will feel free. The wind against me will push my dress up and I will see so far. There will be a delicious tingle on the hairs on my arms and legs and I will truly understand that everything is just one moment. For a minute, in the black of night, the stars and the sky will love me and the slight breeze will caress me and I will feel like I never was alone. But then there will be a shattering crack and this time my outside will look exactly as my inside.

And I remember the day I very nearly physically died. How he bent my body into such a shape that I couldn't understand why it didn't hurt. What his hands felt like around my throat and the redness of his face above me as he hissed and spat my foulness. How he kicked me in my sides over and over again.

And how I only saved myself with cowardly words.

And how I walked afterwards with my daughter, who thankfully had been in the bath. I walked with nowhere to go. No-one to tell. I shook. I hurt. I was stunned by the immenseness of his hate.

And so his words became mine. They crawled under my skin, filled my head and lived on my tongue.

I would never be able to communicate to someone that I liked them because of the enormity of the insult. My mouth and tongue will never kiss someone because when the world looks at me it sees what he saw.

And so I am buried and so I am smashed and so I am choked. And so the earth pressing on me like a vice, the pavement smashing me into tiny jagged pieces, both would be a total relief to the pain of an ignored living death.