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

[Aidan Cooney]

Thank you for reading and commenting on my writing.

[Dressed in Poetry]

This is very good the way it is. It feels like it could be a monologue (and, speaking as an actress, that is a very good thing). You make a great point, and I came out of reading thing completely agreeing with you. Very nice.