hold me by the heart and rip me open

a work in progress. it will hopefully change every couple weeks :)

Can you ever really trust someone again... after they've hurt you? And I don't mean they told you a little lie, or accidentally punched you in the face (trust me, this happens). I'm talking about the real hurt... the soul-hurt, the you-just-drove-a-blade-into-my-chest-and-stole-my-breath hurt. How far does forgiveness stretch? And do wounds really ever heal?

A part of me says no. The realistic part of me says hell no- trust is forever severed. To attempt any future relationship is to guarantee a relationship filled with jealousy, suspicion, insecurity, repressed anger and spitefulness.

Yet then there's the other part of me... the beautiful part of me... the part that says "Of course it's possible." This part soothes me, assuring me that a deep love can heal the most jagged of wounds.

None of it makes any sense. I can expound on the subject for years, and it still would refuse to make sense. It's starting to seem like we eventually choose an emotion and we stick with it; perhaps that's what we call "growing up." It's merely giving up... on trying to figure it out. And since it's much more socially acceptable to choose disillusion, we choose disillusion. Anger and condescension are two other favorites. We choose to be jaded, rather than risk the chance of being hurt again and again.

But to choose disillusion... well, that is the biggest loss of all. This is to sacrifice our soul self. It is to concede that this is all life is going to offer me, and I have no right to dream any bigger, because I'm only going to get my heart broken.

... So what?

Break my heart. Break it again and again. I want to keep being broken until I'm merely a couple of teardrops on the ground. And then I'll absorb into the earth and be reborn. The point is I will be alive in the process of all this living I seem to be bound to do.

I feel as though I'm at a point in my life where the people around me expect me to sacrifice fundamental pieces of my soul in order to be an acceptable part of their society. Even some of the people closest to me seem completely taken aback during those rare moments where something wholly authentic and pure slips from my lips.

People look at me like I'm slightly insane - I've either been way too sheltered, or I'm lacking the necessary brain cells to function efficiently.

I am neither of these things.

Even though perhaps I'm a little crazy. If crazy means I believe that life can be more than paying the bills and marrying someone with education and money and being a size 6 and voting in the primaries and ignoring injustices and eating organic food and learning pilates and cramming so much bullshit into my mind that there's no room for authentic expression or a moment's time to sit and breathe and take care of my soul.

It would be so much easier to just shut off these thoughts and get in line behind everybody else. And I'm not saying that I know more than anyone else... or that I'm better than anyone else. All that I'm saying is that I'm at that point... the precipice everyone reaches at some point in their life.

The point where you choose to be safe, or you choose to be your Self.
 

To step back into safety, or fling yourself over the edge.

And I can't tell you which way this is going to go.

Reviews

[Father Mojo]

this is good. there's only a few stylistic changes i would make in the entire piece and that's only because, when it comes down to it, i'm so self-absorbed that i think that all writing should sound like mine. the substance, however, is flawless. i could challenge a few of your presumptions, like maybe the beautiful part of you is the pat that makes you want to give up and the unbeautiful part of you is the part that keeps making you go back for more, knowing how flawed and painful any relationship will be-that part has only tricked you into believing that it's "beautiful."

i doubt whether even i have become so cynical that i buy what i just said, but the point is that the strength of the piece is that it inspires thought and reflection and possibly even debate--it forces the reader to wrestle with the subject matter. and in the end, isn't that the best we can ever hope for as writers? it would be nice to be "discovered"; it would be really fantastic to be rich and slightly famous; but when it comes down to it, we write hoping to make some sort of connection with someone, so we don't feel like we are so alone and isolated.

authentic connections are rare and they are fleeting and the point of everything said up to this point is that i connected with this piece and i will give you the highest praise that i feel one writer can give to another: i wish i wrote that.

okay, i think that there is a review in there somewhere

[Adela Muresan]

,,life means I believe that life can be more than paying the bills and marrying someone with education and money and being a size 6 and voting in the primaries and ignoring injustices and eating organic food and learning pilates and cramming so much bullshit into my mind that there's no room for authentic expression or a moment's time to sit and breathe and take care of my soul. ,,

This such a good description of the lifestyle of ordinary people.

Your comments upon suffering in love, only lead up to the question � to love ,or not ?

I reached a conclusion not log ago � in a relationship there's always a quantity of love, and if you take all of it there won't be any left for the other; and since love is made between two people � you will sonn run out of it because the other won't be implied. The secret is not to love � to much ,if you can�

Hope it makes some sense :-P.

Cheers x 100

A.M.

[mick weller]

profound introspection - with this piece you open up to us all (the reader/humanity) at the close:

'the precipice *everyone* reaches at some point in their life. '
The point where you choose to be safe, or you choose to be your Self (and emphasise your Self deliberately - instead of yourself - as in your very own SELF)

'..the edge' - that lonely edge - THE lonely edge - if we step back and continue in the safety zone we are doomed by always knowing we were THERE and that we did have the chance and maybe we only ever had that ONE chance.
We meet many who 'stepped back into the safety zone' ...who become familiar with the term 'compromise' - we learn to breathe the air of another day...

'perhaps that's what we call "growing up." It's merely giving up...'
thanks for that

[The Rock And Roll Cowbo..]

Kara you raised such a great question of trust being broken and yes that can be very conflicting as I am also torn by the dilemma, I think for me it comes down to how close the person was and how deep the betrayal... but if I am burned twice by the person then my trust in them would cease to exist... now that part about "if being crazy means..." oh that really got me because that is how I feel, in fact I think being a bit crazy keeps me sane. Once again I find your work to be a mind stimulator and soul searcher.

[-!katie!-]

"Can you ever really trust someone again... after they've hurt you? And I don't mean they told you a little lie, or accidentally punched you in the face (trust me, this happens). I'm talking about the real hurt... the soul-hurt, the you-just-drove-a-blade-into-my-chest-and-stole-my-breath hurt. How far does forgiveness stretch? And do wounds really ever heal?"

well, i did trust someone after trust was destroyed...
now i can't trust anyone at all.

This is really well written
I can relate a lot.
One of those things that makes me wanna cry..
but I don't let myself cry over the boy it reminded me of anymore..
so. i didn't. but if i were allowed, i would've.
well done.

[Tator Of Suburbia]

I know what you mean about the pointlerss hurt, I myself have been stabbed in the abck multiple times because of people who seem to think i am not good enbough for them to be a true person to me. I have seen my friends stab eachother in the back just because we are a ll a little bit defferent from each other. The views you express are that of which everyone knows but chooses to ignore for the sake of fitting it.... "I want to be independent just like everyone else." seems to rule out E purlibus Unum for the official motto of America. Now that there are all the set standards of what people should be its like the world has gone back to the fourties and the fifties when women were only told about how they can be an even more perfect house wife, now women and men are being told how they can be even more like everyone else.
Just because you choose to notice things that everone else decides to ignore doesnot make you insane, in fact it makes you more sane than anyone else. Which brings me back to the backstabbing thing, it has pretty much become the new trend to backstab the truly independent. Deciding to never trust someone like a good friend that has hurt you internally and severed their ties with you does not make you give up becuase you choose not to trust them again. It makes you stonger for you do not choose to deal with people who are so blinded by the idiocracy that is not society.

Now for the actual review part of this review.
I really enjoyed reading this, you express the view well, and you really show that this is something you feel from the heart, and you feel it quite often. It reads like it was planned, not spur of the moment my bestfriend is a jerk, kind of thing.

[bluessadmood]

i really like your writing ,its so close to my way of thinking but if you rebuff these thought or people or events away ,what is left there ,i try to live with them though i feel like an outsider sometimes i feel so alone and hurt a lot for it ,thats why i feel lost most of the time ,you need someone close to the way you think ,but alas there are few ,and very few i found

[Mr. Lopez]

I felt that every single word of this write came straight from a chapter of my life. I could never find the words ,let alone, put them together as well as you have done here. So very bold and raw. We as readers can feel your very real struggle. I am not alone when I say " Can't wait to read more"

[Ancient My Enemy]

I think I know which way it's going to go - pack a parachute.

Nicely done, and thank you. I look forward to more.

[THE BLACK SEAL]

deep things to poder on and you really opened up in this one

[JP thinks the WC is apt..]

I found this very therapeutic, particularly the latter parts about choosing to heal or choosing to fly. You make both sound liberating. Which they are, even if one of these options sounds a lot like suicide.

But I don't think you're meaning is that melodramatic. I think the release you're talking about is something more profound - a release from fear. It's an issue that chimed with me the moment I read it. I think we'd all like to tear something off and be revealed for our true selves (not talking about nudity here...necessarily).

And the title gives resonance to the piece too.

Everything becomes crystalline in the penultimate paragraph when you discuss your fears about being a size six and taking care of your soul. These things are superficial really. The soul's what matters.

It's a poignant thought provoking piece and I have gushed some pretentious shite into this here comment box.

I like.

James x.