I feel like I've been wearing a very thick mask for as long as I can remember. Something that has, for all intents and purposes, covered me from head to toe and muffled my voice. Clinging to me

Rain

I turn my face up to the falling rain, thinking as I do that some small part of the water splashing against me has touched you not to long ago.

I breath then - adding my own gift of water to the mixture. A simple prayer for simple pleasures. Giving of oneself is the only real sacrifice we can make to love.

The rain is kind, not just because it is partly you. Falling water hides my tears, which are another offering to you. The roughness of my voice is easily hidden in the expectation of some sort of illness.

Nothing could be closer to the truth though, it is a sickness. You are a fever to me. I want, not a lot, but too much all the same. I can't find you which is just as well, for I can blame the pain I feel on the absence of you.

I've seen your image in the clouds and there has never been anything more beautiful to my eyes, or more powerful. It, alone, has kept me moving when all I want is to lay down, unmoving. My worn muscles cry out at the motions required by you. The heart that leads them is steadfast. It, alone, keeps the rest going in the whole of the dream of you.

The first touch of you is enough to burn me. That first instant where the surprise of being burned takes the place of the actual pain is all the warning I get. That tingle I feel - a certain start to something difficult and frightening. It's not enough for me to back away, only to draw me in deeper.

It's good to be surprised by you. I have dreamed of so many settings for you, all except the real one. Still proof that dreams are a weak benefit and not a strict predictor of the future. The change from the imagined to the true is pure and honest. The easy way of the move is much better than anything I could plan.

You're the only truth I know. I've lived without light for so long, my heart seems to fit into the smallest area - much smaller than anything before. For an instant, you brought me out of this maze and showed me something better. That's gone now - I saw to that.

Truth and beauty are never rewarded for their own sakes. We want what we want. We need things beyond our own limited worlds. We make for ourselves all that we need and all that we think we can handle.

I've found that you can live a lifetime in a single instant, provided that the instant is with you.

Even outside of time, I still seek those sweet moments, with you.

It moves faster than I, always just out of reach. There isn't any game being played here - the memory can never be recovered. It will always be, sadly, just beyond my trembling fingertips.

The awareness though - that this is how it is supposed to be - gives my weary heart a little relief.

The most frightening thing is the ability to totally break someone else who had the misfortune of caring for me.

She was making a keening noise this morning. Taking a sound we used as a code between us as a 'what' or 'hello' and repeating it. I don't even know if she was aware that she was even doing it.

We don't love with our brains, what a certainty that is. If it were so, she would have run the other way at the sight of me.

I had a dream or vision of the time I did leave - because it was better for her - she was screaming, refusing to let go of me. Begging me for another chance, of what I don't know - perhaps to continue the process of being hurt - we get so addicted to that.

Maybe she thinks like many others do - that there isn't anything better out there. Better this than nothing.

She could do far better then me, obviously.

Annatira

"I can't believe you stood up in my church and said those things about me. That was the only place I had left to me. The only place that I had where I could try to be something good - and you took that away from me."

"You should have seen the look in their eyes - they knew without being told Annie. The depth of self-deception you seek to encase yourself is truly amazing. How they knew is a very interesting question in itself."

"How much is left? Steve left me after that. He said that it was enough and that while he forgave me for the past he couldn't live with me any longer."

"Sad. After what you had put him through, he should have just put that in the pile with the rest and ignored it. It must be a relief for him to have cancer now. The pain of his skin turning against him is a powerful balance to the failure of love. Both eat away at him."

"Is that it now? Everything I have is gone now."

"You only lost what you intended to loose. Everything, as you call it, is really barely anything. Now you can more fully pursue those other relationships."

"I don't want anything anymore. I play a game that seems to be more real than my life ever was. Even after all that you've done to me - I still want that place, that idea more than anything else. Is that the lesson?"

"You should know that from your days as a prison guard - never stay with an abuser. Maybe he found that being an enabler was too much after so long."

Wish

"What do you wish?" She asked while nearly perched on my shoulder. She could tell that something had been bothering me for quite a while and the time had come to discuss it.

"I wish that I made you feel as loved as you make me feel."

The sudden and total honesty that this wish conveyed made both of them quiet for several minutes. It was like the sum total of their relationship could be stated in those few words. Their was meanness there as well, mentioning the gulf in feeling was tantamount to a challenge. Seeing it, that difference in feeling was more though, as was the clear explanation that there was nothing to be done for it - whatever chasm divided them was going to remain so. That insomuch was implied.

"Perhaps that's what I want, someone to feign a feeling. Perhaps I want to be able to put in as much as I want and not have to worry about you. Maybe, just maybe, it's enough and I can deal with it."

Smile

Your smile, and the secret knowledge contained in it, travel with me.

Whenever my heart sinks, from being away from you or forgetting ( for a moment) your sweet face, the simple and basic form of heart and memory lift me up.

Being away from you is own worst pain - the only thing that could hurt more is a further delay in seeing you, touching you.

I can only mouth the word 'why' now. It alone makes sense to me - the question and being alone.

Comfort comes in the razor's edge as a dull pain spreads through me. That hurt focuses my feelings on you, only you.

Weakness in the separation from you - I would fall to my knees now in the field of sharp things, without hesitation if it would bring you closer for a brief moment.

Last Thoughts

We sit staring at one another across time it seems. The riot of colors in this room of last resort do threaten to blind me, or at least interrupt our final moments together.

I don't know why that they would have a room like this for people who are dieing. All I do know is that this is what you wanted. Perhaps to make me uncomfortable in these last hours. More likely, you want to impress on me, once more, that we affect each other - you with the request and me with the lack of a preference.

Looking into your eyes now and understanding things at least a little better. I see the mad colors from this room start to fade away. You are the only thing that matters now.

I begin to think of how our lives were, how curiously balanced that they were. Even down to our coincidental, parallel cancers that are ending our lives so closely together.

Between work and all the other static in our lives, I realize that I hardly knew you. How much remains unknown and hidden. With no time to ask, I do ask myself.

I also thought, in my most secret of places, that I could never bear to see you die. I would wish to be with you for just a short time before you pass. Now, at this point I know that it doesn't matter. I am with you now, at the most important time, no phone calls to take me away. No emergencies at work to divide my attention. Only me and you.

Waiting

I'm not afraid now, the only pale regret is the inability to be close to you.

Lisa's Ex

I remember so much more than the story she told me about her ex-husband. The time and place became interlocked with the feeling of shame, even second hand shame. In a strange way, her feelings became my feelings. Sharing that singular hurt did make it less of a wound and did allow her to put it where it belonged, deep away.

She was taking her, and his, young child to the store for some ice cream when they ran into him and his new wife. He didn't even look at his son, couldn't look at him. Looking at him would mean that he was responsible for him. It was better in his own mind to treat him as a forgotten mistake. I know she wanted to hold her son up and force some kind of acknowledgement, make a wild scene that would somehow get a small amount of attention. That was the point though, that small bit of sight. Which is exactly why she didn't do that. Even though it hurt a lot she understood that having the son and not the father was a best result that could be hoped for.

She told me about him because, even at that time, she knew how things were going to end. The unspoken plea in the story was not to be as bad as this. And of course things didn't end as bad as that. How could they?

No Revenge?

"So, no revenge against me?" Lisa asked into a sudden silence.

"There's nothing to get back at you for. You're exactly as you said you were and you never lied.

"When you told me about your marriage and how it ended in coldness I didn't want to be an addition to that. A competitive story that only serves to make you feel ill at ease." I feel that I'm talking into a long narrow passageway here. All the possible regret flows around me.

"You did that well enough. It's all for a good cause as now I don't trust anyone and any relationships that I get involved in are obviously impossible."

"So we're both in agreement then that I am a jerk?" This said in a quiet voice which offsets the attempt at humor. The unspoken plea for a real forgiveness seems to hang in the air. Energetic electrons play in the line as Lisa makes a decision.

"I've actually met some bigger jerks then you, and there's no way you could compete in a stupidity race with my ex-husband. He can't even feel bad about what he's done."

"I'm sorry there are so many stupid people out there. I think that in order to be online so much there has to be something missing in us. Some basic drive to see the real world for what it is instead of trying to manipulate a fake one."

I answered the phone, unsure what to expect.

"Hello Lisa, how are you?"

"I can't really believe I'm calling you after all that happened, but here I am. Just so you don't get any impossible ideas, I'm not trying to get back together."

I laugh at this, as I expect she wants me too. "Don't worry I know better then that. I wouldn't expect anything, but it is good to hear your voice again."

Lisa clears her throat, quietly. Like most of her little habits, clean and quiet.

"Anna talked to me. A while ago and I had to talk to you about it."

I wait now. A moment passes and I say, "She told you then?"

"Told me what?" She says instantly with a bit of heat which tells me she knows what I am about to say.

"That Annie knew all about us when she did her bit of seducing."

The shock is evident, even on the phone.

I did tell Annie about Lisa and I, it didn't do much good though. She said she didn't mind and wouldn't be a problem. I think she understood as part of who she was that Lisa and I were not going anywhere.

Two women - more then a first time for me. Beyond anything I thought was possible or right. I got exactly what I deserved for it.

"Why didn't you say anything? I might have..." she trailed off.

"I didn't say anything because it got me out of two bad relationships. Even if I was separated at the time, I know you wouldn't have forgiven me. I hoped that ending it the way I did would help you heal faster. More likely, I was just selfish and took an easy way out. Annie though - she was just a means to an end."

Lisa said,"But Anna said you were playing all sorts of tricks on her."

"The only thing I did was send her husband a book about how to recover from a cheating spouse."

"Interesting." Lisa said.

"There was also the note on the inside cover about getting an AIDS test as soon as possible. I know someone who works at a warehouse."

"Tacky - you should have spelled out some other disease. Something less common." Lisa said.

"You're not surprised. Like with me."

"They both fit. Besides, even you wouldn't believe the rumors floating around her."

I know she can hear the smile in my voice as I say, "Shall we compare notes?"

Annie had told me about Steve as well.

Strange how intimate performance is the end all, do all for men. Without that physical element there just seems to be a gray scene where nothing matters.

She told me about the depression that resulted from the lack of intimacy. She spoke longingly of times past when they would spend days together.

Then Steve's cancer came and everything changed. There was no relaxing now. Each time together held the unspoken and dangerous question about whether this was the last time.

Wouldn't it be horrible to know, with certainty, that it was the last time for something? Our greatest blessing is the lack of knowledge.

She described the delicious feeling she had when voting against gay marriage, as only the truly foolish thought it was really about marriage.

Gay bashing. Pure and simple. On the plus side though, it gave her and others a sense of moral superiority which had been missing for so long.

The laughter in her voice threatened to spill over as she spoke about how sacred marriage was. How sacred her own marriage was and how so many other moral chameleons were caught up in all that. She described perfectly that feeling of coldly looking down upon others. Seeing herself, for all her faults, above them. Denying others something that would have cost her nothing.

Arguments that would have been in vogue a hundred years ago to fight against the moral issues of that day are on display. The biblical ones are there, if you ignore 90% of the other content there. The thousand year argument which makes you remember about all the nice things happening then.

A weird time

I like to write sometimes. I've found things inside me that find their way out, no matter what I do.

What is writing anyway? Are there really any bad styles out there?

There is a strange sense when putting words to paper. It isn't the same with a keyboard, it can never be the same.

I'm going to move some of the better posts from another blog here.