trust and pain

There is a sensation in the fingertips. There is a raw measure of pleasurable pain. The skin it touches is hot from the rush of blood and bold exposure. The turn of a head, the turn of a heart is solid and heavy. Dependable. She knows she can hold it there and be careful. But, the mirror shows a crack. She shakes her head hard, back and forth until the dizziness makes her whole body sway. Reset. She speaks the words out loud. Scoldingly, ‘weren’t you just here a few short months ago and last year and then again a few years before that’. ‘Look into my eyes,’ she screams, ‘convince me that you really mean what you say because all I seem to know is what I am told anymore’. Heavy. Knowing she knows nothing. Instinct is all she has.

Living on the edge and holding her heart open and bleeding on her sleeve has never been easy. But she knows no other way. It means she’s always torn and ragged and bloody. Open. Cautious, she feels it again creeping under all of her skin, in places she did not remember feeling before. Even though each one is different, she’s wise to remember she’s been here before so many times. Experience. She tells herself silently not to trust it. And then she says no, that’s not it, instead what she really can’t trust is herself. She wonders how she could have begun to trust others when she knows now that she forgot to trust herself. Awareness. After all that, after all she has done and after all she has damaged, she still can’t help but be in it, to look at it closely and wonder if this will be different finally. Anticipation. The turn of a head and the turn of a heart is always solid and heavy and is her own. Besides, where else is left to go when she’s already gone?