It’s not for you. It’s because of the shattered past you had brought into view.
And still, I can’t tell you even though your’re the only one who would understand.
I remember how much concern you showed that one night.
I hoped that would still be there now. Not because I needed it, but because of how this has all opened me up and showed me that I wasn’t doing as well as I thought I was.
I’m disgusted with myself.
So you go …
I’ll be fine.
It had almost been a year. I thought I was past this. It wasn’t something I could stop. I know how afraid of this you were, as was I. I promised you, as much as myself, that it would ever happen. I truly believed that. I really did. I was doing so well. I was never supposed to be at that point.
You are the only one who would understand. It’s nothing new to you. Yet, even in this, I fear divulging this information.
I’m afraid, ashamed, so very upset. It had almost been a year. I swore I’d never do it again. I want you to know, yet I want to save you from that.
It was a mistake. Unintentional.
If you ever knew, which you probably never will, you’d hate me even more than you do now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mention any of it.
(And in writing this I realize I have a date with the boy who drove me to a handful of pills.)
If only you didn’t touch me in that pure state of perfection.
Cracking open the misconception I’d held that I’d always be misunderstood.
If your simple comfort wasn’t as addictive as I’ve found it to be.
No matter what the circumstances were,
whether we found ourselves in conflict or pure or understanding
I found your existence completely soothing.
I’m so sick with longing for you.
Not for your touch, not for your consciuously concealed love
I need none of that.
I miss the connection we shared,
That feeling of anticipation of your arrival.
The frenzy of excitement running through me as you walked to my door.
The safety of your company.
The times you ask so respectfully for my touch.
The appreciated you showed when I laid it on you,
The multitude of texts in the day.
The comfort in knowing you’d be there.
And now there is this uncomfortable distance
that plagues me in the moments like these
when I look to my left,
the side you always occupied in sleep or waking hours
and I find it empty.
Cars pass in the distance.
I hope so very much that one of them belongs to you.
The one time that someone has immortalized my very form in writing. This happened many months ago. These moments he spoke of were momentous for me. Difficult, yet so crucial in this process that I embarked upon shortly after this:
These past three days.
You just left. I saw you out the door only a few moments ago, you are probably listening to your underground hiphop, the poetic sort, that inspires.
Just now getting on the highway, on your 5 hour drive back to your home. Five hours that you drove to me meet me, a stranger. I felt that we had a deep connection, it seemed like something that could work in both our favors. How wrong I was. Your Borderline Personality Disorder, put many walls around you, you were a emotional and psychological fortress of tempered steel. Disassociation hindered you many times while you were here.
Truth is, many times I felt that I hated you to the core. Your words, your thoughts, as much as they sounded like they would have been something that could have come out of my own mouth, sickened me. What grew from a romantic interest in you, became a loathing of your existence. I felt like I were to vomit. I cried, I broke down. Stripping the layers of myself.
I was Hiroshima, you were the nuclear bomb inside my gut. I hated you.
Not because of who you were. Not because of your self-sabotaging feelings you gained after the very confusing and nearly morbid sex we had.
But because you were the blade that cut into me.
Every night, I was playing Haraikiri with my guts, and Seppuku with my ego. You saw me as who I was. You saw my insecurities, my weakness. You saw it easier then it was for me, you a perfect stranger.
Now I know I probably won’t ever see you again, and it is a shame. But what you gave me wasn’t hatred. You gave me birth, epiphany.
You showed me the light inside myself again. It was the most difficult three nights that I have had in a very long time.
It was not you that I hated. But the darkness within myself I have been fighting for a very long time, refusing to admit to myself.
I am reborn again, a phoenix waking into rebirth, rising from the ashes.
So I thank you, stranger. Thank you for cutting into me.
Thank you for what you have done.
And here I am on the opposite side of this, yet still inside. I see it all. There is so much sense manifested in this. I will always love this brilliant man who say me in such a true way. This same man who spoke to my very core and was never afraid of and brought to the demons that festered in me that I have come to conquer. For that, I owe him my life and all the happiness I find on my own path.
On this night, as all of the others, I sit in the same space we used to occupy. There’s a certain chill in the air. The last remnants of spring make themselves known. It is crisp and makes me feel alive. I feel it, but not as deeply in my bones as the days before this. Oh, how the weather changes from comfortable to agonizing. This night is a casual in between. Half on one side, half on the other. Tolerable, yet it holds a tender sting. A light reminder of the nights I’ve spent here freezing to the core. The embrace fights off that bitterness. So slight, but a trace of the former days.
The same holds true with us. The connection that resides between us changes as the seasons do. There was the same in the late spring of my life you found me in. I was managing to shake off that final bit of cold that still clung to my bones, but I still remained unready to put away my winter clothes. We were the same in that respect. We held these thick layers at our sides to prevent us from feeling that numbing chill again. Neither had gotten warm enough to find a true comfort in the air.
And there it was, the catalyst of the summer fires sparked between us. Warm, so very warm. It grew each day we spent together, getting hotter and hotter. Suddenly the sweat permeated through our pores. The heat consumed us. Left us exhausted. Spent. We collapsed in it. There were many nights we were there sprawled out on the grass side by side. Soon, we both became engulfed in it. Escape attempts were fatal.
There was no fall. Soon we were hit by an unforgiving winter. Freezing us to the point of hypothermia. We sat there shivering, alone. The layers stripped by the other for their own warmth. Never a sharing of the few resources we had left. Ice collected on that skin once damp from the heat. Both of us desperately riding it out and hoping for the end of this unwelcome discomfort. We’ve been here before, but always in the others, sometimes never finding an escape from the snow.
And here it is again, so similar to the night that is this. If I sit here too much that same chill sets in. My feet, my hands, all going numb. Still, my core stays warm. I feel you, and that much needed spring, coming around again. The only thing I can do is fight this off and wait and wait and wait hoping that we will finally relocate to a much more temperate climate than this.
Examining feelings is a crucial part in the process of truly understanding them and repairing the faulty wiring. I examine every thought that drifts across my consciousness. Inspect it carefully, and if it seems flawed I dissect it. Is this right? Does this make any logical sense? Is it a product of past conditioning or something rational? I question everything. I’ve been told I think too much, contemplate too much, analyze myself counter-productively. What they don’t seem to grasp is that this is something that the process of healing binds you to.
Today’s conquest was how much I truly missed you. Of course this was a constant theme in my former pursuits. I spent half my life missing someone. It was often rooted in those fears of abandonment they stirred up, or a product of the conflict of the image of perfection I built around them conflicting with their human flaws.
After careful inspection, I realize that these feelings are logical, genuine, and so very real. They are stripped of the frenzied lust I’d felt in the past. How so? I don’t need you for anything. I don’t have images dancing about in my head of you coming to soothe these wounds. You are not the knight in shining armor I desperately craved in my irrational daydreams. No, this is something different,
Instead of craving the comfort and salvation in your arms that was a common themes of the former longing I had experienced for others, this is substantial. My feet remain planted on the ground. You have worked your way into my once foolish heart and still I acknowledge that you are human. You have flaws. The image I bear of you is not that of a fantasy. This is realistic, tangible, true.
Images that come across me are much more solid, much more concrete than the longing for something I’ve never truly had. There we are, in my bed, yes, but not in states of heated bliss. We talk of the world. Our philosophies on life and love. We share our experiences of each over cigarettes and snobbish beers while combating the slightly chilly air of the transition between spring and summer. Of course I feel your hands on me in these unexpected reveries. Not in passion. Not in comfort. Not in anything but the tender caress that you so skillfully provided to me that soothed the chaos inside my flesh. That lovely and pacifying touch. I could write that I never miss you in that sensual sense, but I will admit that images of us in those intimate times strike me with such intensity. Yes, there was pleasure there, but so much more than that. The way you traced my every curve. That speaks much louder than the eroticism.
You are human. You are flawed, as am I. These slight defects in your character are nothing that will turn me away or make me think any less of you. In truth, I feel comfort in them. Exposing the cracks in your humble facade requires a level of intimacy, vulnerability and trust. While others flee in the face of imperfection, I embrace it all. Your sometimes volatile disposition is only a product of the passion that stirs within you. Something that sets my heart ablaze with the same. While others see the danger, I see a strange charm in it. In everything, and I mean everything, that you are.
And suddenly, it occurs to me that this is the true rooting of that so often misunderstood concept of ‘love’. There are no pedestals, no levels, none of that. Love comes from understanding and acceptance. My vision takes in the whole of you, as our so-called ‘flaws’ are so very similar. Not flaws at all. Just facets. They stand to reflect the light of the outer layers allowing them to shine as bright as they are capable of. I love all of you without placing you on the crooked pedestals above me I’d placed so many others.
This is where the true beauty of love resides. Acceptance of the whole of the parts.
There are times I try with all my mental might to rid you from my mind. Self-preservation at its finest. Still, it is no match for the impact you had on my flesh. The two are in constant conflict and I am tossed between them. It’s left me nauseous and sick.
At this moment I want nothing more than to drunkenly stumble into the only place where I’d ever found a true sanctuary. I crave that feeling of barricading myself in a pile of blankets and sheets. This was the only source of true comfort I had ever known. The ghost of you haunts this place and corrupts the rest I so desperately seek.
The sheets remain skewed. Pillows still in a state of disruption. Remnants of us, those times we spent, still scattered on the floor. I only face them when I manage to sedate myself past the point of concern. There we were. From the first moment to the last. Passion. The passion, and here I am in the withdrawal, alone, cold, and desperate. A pathetic mess of a girl.
I just want to sleep. Find some true solitude. Some relief for my weary head. Suddenly, my flesh hollowly reflect the feeling of your fingertips dancing about. How you knew each path, each trail, so effortlessly. No one has ever known as well as you.
To fix something you must understand it. To truly understand something you must experience it. To experience it fully you must leave it completely unfiltered.
In this state, I know I must carry the full weight of my primal emotions. These ways I’m conditioned to function it. At this moment, it may be a true exaggeration, but that’s what I need. It’s crucial that I fully experience it so I can understand it and inspect these faulty mental processes to save myself the misery.
A rather harsh thought crossed my mind today that has kept my focus: Has anyone who has truly known me been genuinely happy in being with me? I contemplate this and find myself with more evidence that supports the truth that none of them really have been. There was always this undercurrent of misery there as if I had unwillingly attached this anchor to them that they struggled against. I am nothing but a weight that I’ve tied to their ankles. They struggle. We struggle, and the chain is broken. They swim to the surface while I’m left drowning in the depths.
All I wanted to do was love. To love and be loved. Every time I love it consumes me. Their faults are far beyond my view. My adoration is pure, genuine, and I feel it with every inch of myself. Consuming. Reckless. The intensity of it becomes intoxicating. I’m set fire with a blazing passion in me that engulfs the both of us. I revel in the warmth while they become blistered by the heat. Discomfort sets in. The dismount is inevitable. They throw me into the raging fires that were my own creation. My flesh burns until I’m nothing but a pile of ash and smoke.
Have I ever loved? Been loved? The feelings of blossoming attraction leave me in a pure state of nervousness and anxiety. For all the times I’ve failed. From all of the times I’ve been burned by the carelessness of others and myself. I ricochet between the urge to cling with all my might and flee with the little I have left still intact. I can never be secure in these feelings of adoration from other side. Each causes me to fling myself in another direction. Going. Staying. Clutching. Running. I can never be comfortable in the descent, yet I get uncontrollably sucked into it. I become a black hole for the feelings of adoration and affection. Give me more! More! More!! Nothing is ever enough. I’m insatiable. I leave those I love drained, exhausted, and gasping for air. It is only after they take that last breath that I realize what I’ve done. I desperately try to revive but that heartbeat never resumes. Another one gone. Another one suffocated by my faulty attempts to find comfort in this internal storm.
This. All of this. It plagues my mind. Now I understand the other side of the fear I’ve been presented with. I want to love you but I can’t because it will destroy me, you, both of us. There’s never been a double-edged sword that as sharp as this. That knife in the gut from seeing someone flee for their own safety, yet knowing that you were the one wielding it. Guilt and rejection become a deadly combination that sets fire to the hollow insides you walk with. The hunger eats you, but your meek conscious tries to fight it. You lure the victims so effortlessly and they come stumbling unknowingly into your web. The urge to consume and fill that void in yourself is in complete conflict with the genuine concern you hold. That’s been you too many times, yet this is uncontrollable. A battle rages within. Harm was never in your plan, just a byproduct of the conditioning. Anything, anything to fill the void.
Another night, another contemplation, another fixation, and hopefully another revelation.
It’s him, again. Not just his being, but the things that it stirred in me. The wounds that were unconsciously and haphazardly torn open, victim to the faulty, frenzied stitching I had carried out. Some deeply buried in resentment, others hidden and out of sight of my own misguided understanding. He plucked at them as if they were a harp. His hands were so very skilled. This, these wounds, seemed a home to him. Strikingly familiar. He knew the layout and navigated so carefully in the dark. Such cautious and determined footsteps. He knew just where to place them, as did I. We danced effortlessly into this beautiful yet vengeful chaos.
Here it stands, both of us so seasick from the confusion. One asking for a steady and stable current while the other unleashed a devastating storm. Just as the tides, it would shift again. We watched the other drown mercilessly, spiting the other for leaving us a victim to the volatile environment that existed from the collision. The same we’d inflicted in retribution. We’d be left there struggling to breathe, suffocated by the water forced in our lungs by the other. The undercurrent would begin to surge, tug at the ankles of the vindictive criminal. Both of us submerged in the same unforgiving sea. We watched the other drown, sharing the same struggle. We tried to rescue, save the other from the inevitable. It consumed everything we were.
And here, as it stands, I am the one left coughing and trying so desperately to purge the rejection from my lungs. It’s so very toxic to the beings we are. A poison in our bloodstream. I am a victim to the anxiety. Trembling. Frantic. Reaching out to find nothing but the ghost of so many who have disposed of me. I
We become victims of the very things we are. Undeniable charm. Merciless charisma. False facades of strength. Misconstrued passion. Skilled seduction. There’s no one in the world who understands me the way you do. It’s the vulnerability we’re after. We feed on it. Such a sick addiction. We present ourselves as the valiant and courageous savior. I want to save you from the suffering, fix this mess you’re in. Underneath there stirs the one who craves the same in others. Still a scared and neglected child. So naive to these same weapons we hold in defense. If we are these things we’ll never become the prey. We’ll never be left. Care, concern, nurturing. That’s what we’re truly after. Please, just love me and take care of me. Don’t leave. I need you.
The cycle repeats until one finally gives up from the overwhelming pressure. We act as abuser and enabler. The cycles shift and repeat and leave us dizzy until we finally collapse as we have so many times before.
Fucking christ. This. This exactly. Right now. The bittersweet BPD relationship.
“The fear, the expectancy is planted. And so I start thinking, maybe he’s right. Maybe all those scared and playful stream-of-consciousness letters were just touching again and again at this recurring string of doubt and premonition. As it stands now, he alternately denies and accepts me, as I silently do him. There is sometimes a great destructive, annihilating surge of negative fear and hate and recoiling: “I can’t, I won’t.” And then there are long talks, patient, questioning, the physical attraction, soothing again, pacifying, lulling. “I love you.” “Don’t say that. You don’t really. Remember what we said about the word Love.” “I know, but I love this girl, here and now, I don’t know who she is, but I love her.” There is always coming again strongly the feeling as frantic in another way - really, what if I should deny this and never meet anyone as satisfying or, (as I have been hoping) better? To use a favorite metaphor: It is as if both of us, wary of oysters so rich and potent and at once digestively dangerous as they are, should agree to each swallow an oyster (our prospective mate) tied to a string (our reserve about committing ourselves). Then, if either or both of us found the oyster disagreeing with our respective digestive systems, we could yank up the oyster before it was too late, and completely assimilated in all its destructive portent (with marriage.) Sure, there might be a little nausea, a little regret, but the poisoning, corrosive, final, destructive, would not have had a chance to set in. And there we are: two scared, attractive, intelligent, dangerous, hedonistic, “clever” people.
So, weighing danger, I find it carries the balance. (He probably will, too.) Therefore I say “Je ne l’epouserai jamais! JAMAIS, JAMAIS!” And even there the doubts begin - if you find no one else as complete, as satisfying? If you spend the rest of your life bitterly regretting your choice? A choice you must make. And soon. Which will have the courage to be first? If I met someone I could love, it would be so painless. But I doubt if I will be that lucky again. Could I change my attitude & subordinate gladly to his life? Thousands of women would! It would depend on-fear-of-being-an-old-maid and sex-urge being strong enough. They aren’t, at nineteen, (although the latter is pretty potent.) So there I am - if I could only say with faith: somewhere there is a man I could love and give of myself to with trust and without fear. If only. Then I wouldn’t cling so desperately and strangely to this one beautiful intelligent, sensual human companion as I do. Or he to me. But desiring human flesh, companionship - ”How we need that security! How we need another soul to cling to. Another body to keep us warm! To rest and trust… ” said so for Bob. I say it now again. How many men are left? How many more chances will I have? I don’t know. But at nineteen I will take the risk and hope that I will have another chance or two!”
Sylvia Plath (2007-12-18T10:00:00+00:00). The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (Kindle Locations 2019-2020). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
