HIDING FROM HELLHOUNDS..
It was easy to see,
when I woke her,
to go to work,
that she was not well...
although she tried to convince me that she would be fine...
she was in the beginnings of fever
and the onset of deep sickness.
I made her tea
with sweet new england honey
and brought it to her as the coughs racked her frame...
the body that had loved me with such passion
just hours before,
was ill now,
and yet
she rose and dressed..
covering those wondrous breasts
and hiding from my eyes
the very meal they craved
almost always now..
I drove her off into the bright morning,
heading to a day which we had planned to be an aperitif
to the main course of the weekend..
We had a few hours of work ahead
but not until later...
for now
she was going to show me
what had once been her world..
the good parts of it...
and so off we drove on our trip,
a trip through the sunny places of her history,
the places where her young motherhood had been spent...
out from the shadow of the beast..
out from the cave and into the beginnings
of her own elusive light.
She had told me of these places,
how she had run to them,
desperate for escape
and longing to belong
to somewhere safe.
We followed small roads,
through smaller towns
and along pretty tree lined streets,
stopping at a schoolhouse here,
and a hardware store there...
old jobs, old walks, old loves
places to take her child for ice cream
places to hide from the madness
which she felt she had forever left behind her.
As she looked now,
into these places of her heart's youth,
she realized that the beast was never behind her...
but had created itself within her..
she had never been able to leave it
as long as she carried it in her soul,
the beast was no longer the man in the cave..
hadn't been for years..
the beast was inside of her,
in some dank dark place hidden in her recesses.
she had made it from the hell in her soul
and carried it with her all this time..
wrapped in her shame and pain
and guilt and grief.
Now, back in her memoryville,
within reach of the cave,
the beast was snarling..
hungry for her life..
and yet,
she was out of reach now..
she could move away from the deep part,
and keep a lid on the cauldron in her soul.
It was freeing to her,
and frightening,
horrifying
to see that the beast.. the real beast..
was a part of her own being,
and that her attempts to outrun it,
and hide from it,
had never worked, never really could work.
She was going to have to destroy the part of her that sheltered the beast,
change the formula that allowed her to make it
in the first place...
she was going to have to see the beast for what it truly was...
and
when she finally did so,
she was going to have to dismantle it,
break it back down into it's individual parts..
and rebuild it into the shattered child
and give it a chance to grow up....
It wasn't going to be easy,
but then again
nothing ever is
when it comes to rebuilding one's soul.. is it?
After we arrived at the hall,
and set up the show,
we had time for food,
and walking..
Over microbeer and chowder,
I watched her face,
watched the haunting still around her eyes,
and then I watched her breasts instead...
Against all odds,
for all the right and the wrong reasons,
she had completely captured me,
I was a prisoner to her in the same way that she herself was...
But I had much different agendas...
I wanted to be on her,
vaulting the sturdy hand made table
in the crowded restaurant,
and scattering it behind me into the watching, appalled lunchers.
I wanted to have her softness next to my chest,
needed her nipples against mine..
I wanted to push her to the floor,
scooping her dress up over her belly and
letting everyone else see the wonder
which I knew so well...
And when I entered her,
in the shocked silence of this college luncheonette,
as her thighs opened to welcome me,
I wanted to forever make her mine...
make me be hers
and make us be ours.
But I didn't.
I just paid the check and we left...
walking,
around the campus town.
Past the supermarket,
past the drugstore and the video rental store...
down to the back of the parking lot..
I was heading her inexorably towards a small patch of woods..
hoping to kick up some leaves..
but she would have none of it.
And so instead,
we had a silly fight,
a stupid egobruise conflict
over hidden jealousies and concealed affections.
We almost ended everything right there,
almost threw it all away,
because we were afraid..
afraid to love and to be loved,
afraid to commit and unable to leave well enough alone.
It was clear that what we had was not enough for me,
and may well have been too much for her
And later,
when we were at the show,
and almost nobody else was,
I kept trying to kiss her,
to blow onto her neck, or into her ear,
I wanted still to be inside her, beside her,
I wanted in the purest, simplest way
to be only a part of an us,
in both a physical and a metaphysical sense
But we were at work,
and she is very shy
in public..
and so we worked as a team..
she tried to pass out,
and I tried to do her job as well as my own...
and I wasn't any good at either one.
we were fortunate that it was a quiet show,
and that we were mostly left alone,
to our misery,
and our medication..
hers to kill the symptoms,
and mine to kill the rage...
how could this happen to me,
how could she get sick...
this damned weekend...
of all times,
just when she needed all of her strength
and I needed all of her weaknesses.
It was a long, long day.
