Like the Perfume of Lilacs

I know that it will hurt, this dark room. I know that it will hurt – this deep breath right now, that frontal assault then. I could have said that kiss then, but if we're honest, I don't remember kissing you. You were such a commitment I thought I had to keep. So remarkably unmemorable. Such a vacuous presence of a person, I don't even feel like writing about you right now.

But there's that other dark room. All your dark room energy. Threat energy and steely weights in the corner. A day full of Natalie Cole singing flash, bam, alacazam, out of the orange-colored purple sky. Then Sting as the lights lowered in the ballroom like the sun in the sky, the darkening lyric, You'll remember me. There was rumba in the middle of a circle of strangers, all of whom were being actively invited to take in your body, pelvic bowl, the way you moved. 

Tracy Chapman singing Give me one reason to stay here and my familiar sweetness floating away from me like a red balloon. I knew it would hurt, but not near as much as it did. I knew that it would hurt the same way a cutter knows the blade will hurt. I knew if I felt that, I could stop feeling something else. Or it made the devastation of the something else sweeter somehow, like the perfume of lilacs rising up from blood. I suppose I also wanted to see if anyone would notice me coming home late, sleeping in the next morning, showing up to work opened and bleeding all over. But no one ever did. Not one single drop noticed. I feel that in my throat. And right wrist. Across. Those who know say that's not productive. That there's a better way to express your pain.

I didn't know the hurt would stay so long. I didn't know that it could be okay that it did – that I still have it and remember and carry it so acutely. I know that it will hurt, I remember saying under the moon in that bad neighborhood, slamming my car door shut behind me. Only I didn't. Say that. I just can't stop thinking it now, when I look back. 

This came out when I gave my body a voice inside Body Writers, my somatic writing and healing circle. Learn to give your body a voice here.