“What I messaged you the other night….”

The magazine pages
Flip over and fall onto the part
That grasps my attention
That makes me gasp
For breath

A nerve is hit

And so I read of
“loneliness in relationships”
and
“respecting intuition”
And
I think of you
And what I messaged you the other night
And the hard clipped words in your reply
- patronizing
- and chastising as if I was a little girl
- I am not
- Your words were just like that
Of my father

And it hurt
And I cried

Yes, you seem to be another dynamic played out
As I try to uncover and release the hurtful pattern
Of a past I cannot reclaim
Of a closeness that never was
Of a father that never is

And you are just like him
And I fell for you
Self-fulfillingly

First I read the piece on loneliness
And as I tired to understand
The dynamics between us
I stepped away
Took a step back and said
“No more”
“Not this time”
And I unplugged the imaginary cord
Connecting me to you
I pulled it out

I am now about to read the piece
On intuition
And that left me reeling
Because what left me feeling
so UTTERLY lonely when WITH you
is your lack of affirmation of me
your lack of intimately connecting with me
you held back
every time
playing your manipulative game of taking and “listening” to all you could from me
to always keep the upper-hand
to ensure you’d always be the one in control
and controlling the situation
and when I became demanding
it threw you
I wanted clarity and boundaries
A sense of security
I wanted vulnerability
From YOU
I challenged you
And your world would be wobbled
And control would start wavering
And you’d run
The hostility between us would set in
The love was gone

OR
Perhaps it never was there

But that’s exactly what my father did
Played his sick manipulative game
I see now though how he always used his loud harsh bark
To cover up the weak man inside
His inability to stand up for himself
His inability to make a commitment
To himself
And to another

And you’re the same

So all that inability gets covered up
with a sick strategic game
it’s always easier to rather surround one’s self
with others who do the work for them
set the boundaries in place for them
don’t demand higher ideals
closer connection
deeper intimacy
because it puts you
(as it put him)
On the line
To be REAL
- real with yourself
- real with another
- real with the world
- and the closer to the other, the more threatening and dangerous

that’s what I was to you
wasn’t it?
I was a threat
Danger
To your carefully worked out game
Your carefully structured identity
I challenged its rules
And so your existence
Your carefully structured world
Of military strategy
And no emotion
- because that’s always where the truth lies
- rather safer to stay within the confinement of rational thinking and intellect, its crisp and clear
- emotion is abstract and submerged, it exists with different rules, it requires US to surrender to IT, and you hate that (as does he)
- you’d have to face your deepest darkest part of yourself and confront the places you’ve kept so well-hidden

You run from your own identity
The one that dwells in your unconscious
And I tapped into it
That’s the language I spoke to you
So when things started to surface
It was too much for you to face
Who you really are
Because you’ve honed your conscious to steer your ship
To “be” your pseudonym identity
Your conscious rules you with its fears
And you deny your true core self that lives beneath the surface
You deny your unconscious SELF
You deny you

I speak the language of unconscious to you
And you reply with the language of conscious
And so the constant battle of
light versus dark
Truth versus deception
Is put into play.

you see I can’t do
what you do
because I made a choice not to
I was very young when I chose this
To not become a stagnant lie
Spending my life investing in constantly covering up
The truth of what I really felt
I understood all too well
The dis-easedness of it all
To play life that way
Play others that way
To play my SELF that way
…. To waste myself away

I see you doing that
And yet, I too am the fool
For not having learned how to walk away
from my own childhood relationship dynamics
I pulled you into my web
And now I have to find the recipe
To remove the glue
That keeps you sticking to me
Or keeps me sticking to you

Perhaps you have found how
To leave me behind
And its just me that has to learn the trick
It’s a lonely thought
But I will
I can
Because my ideals are too high to be ignored
I will crack this reflection I have of myself
- Undervaluing
- underestimating
- not worthy to be truly and truthfully loved
I will smash this mirror
And build a new one
… I’m slowly sourcing the pieces
that do not include you.
(01 March 2009)