Old Habits Die Hard And I Still Find Myself Touching The Pad Of My Thumb Against The Junction Of My Ring

Old habits die hard and I still find myself touching the pad of my thumb against the junction of my ring finger to fiddle with a ghost. I wonder, if everyone else, too, can see the slight crease of my skin where it used to sit. Or maybe that scar is something that only I can see.

-Beyond? September 2023

(s.m.)

Tonight, I finally admitted you had me afraid. That last night as the words poured from your mouth, I was afraid of you. How terrible, to not only lose love but safety.

A very wise women said to me that there is no such thing as closure. She was right, there is only an end and often it is ugly.

-After, August 2023

(s.m.)

I know it is my father's first time on this Earth, too. And I know He had it worse when he was little.

But I was little too.

— Franz Kafka, from letters to his father

I changed my hair.

I cut my bangs and the strands clogged the drain in the sink as I cut you out of me.

How afraid you would have been. Of change. Of me.

How afraid you were of my slightest hitching of breath and how you smothered me. You cast me in wax and iced me so I would never melt, the perfect image, never changing, always static.

But I am a hurricane, and I don't need your approval, and I realized that as my hair fell from my brow. I lit the building on fire and the wax melted right off.

And now.

Oh, if you could see me now.

You would weep, for your fear kept at bay something so great, something so beautiful, you would fall to your knees.

How your fear cost you so much.

What a tragedy, but it's not mine.

-Beyond, October 2023

(s.m.)

Once, when I was 21, I begged my roommate to leave her boyfriend. I considered us sisters and no matter how angry she could make me or how annoyed I could be I decided I would love her.

It's always hard to realize that is not always enough.

I begged her to leave her boyfriend and she would almost do it so many times and then the next day would come around and no matter what vile things he said to her she would forgive him and they would move on.

On Halloween, I heard him screaming at her over the phone from across the room. All the roommates spent the whole night keeping her from her pain until we found ourselves huddled in front of our dorm tv with smeared makeup and popcorn.

He knocked on the door and I don't know why but I answered, I have always been the mediator. He was huffing and puffing through the crack I gave him to see me. At first, I thought he was worried about her, until the utter hatred in his eyes landed on me.

We all begged her to break up with him after that. Three girls crying on the floor as she shook in our arms.

Halloween never ended well for me and that night only told me it could get worse after he slammed the door open so hard our wall had a dent in it, ripping it from my fingers and all of his 6 foot mass launched my 5'5 figure into our fridge.

We begged her to break up with him after I spent an hour of my life with my finger over the call dial for campus police and watched him scream at her and me and my other roommate. He knew we didn't like him.

My one roommate called him a piece of shit and I have never been more afraid than when I thought he would hit her.

My other roommate sat paralyzed in her chair watching the scene unfold and I waited.

I waited for his hatred to turn back on me again as he screamed at his girlfriend.

That night we thought it was over. And that morning we thought it was over.

We didn't even make it 24 hours until she came home and told me and my roommate that she couldn't listen to our opinions anymore. She understood, wasn't sorry, understood, that he threw me into the fridge, he would never step foot in our dorm again. She promised.

And I felt my love die. Shrivel up in my chest.

Because, that night, if I had to, I would have killed him for her, I would have fought him with everything in me if he even tried to touch her.

But she couldn't give me the same in return.

Countless time she told me she wasn't in love with him. She was just afraid of being alone.

Fear of being alone.

That was worth how he threw me into our fridge.

That was worth how he left her three roommates in tears.

That was worth how he left her shaking while I held her.

Fear of being alone.

Just because you love someone doesn't mean you can save them.

-beyond one problem and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)

August 18, 1929 Journals of Anais Nin 1927-1931 [volume 4]