"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"
- that is all
Ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know.
Suddenly, it all seems so meaningless. Everything. Why do I get up, why even move? Why do I write? Where does anything lead but to more emptiness, more uselessness, more screams I dare not let out? For so many years I battled to prove my case. Now, I cannot bear to even see my swindling smile on vanity vacations. I thought I was winning, but the more I won the more lost I became.
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I won the argument for my life but lost my life. I thought one the same as the other. So much anger! Always fighting, preserving the precious facade. But now, when I feel I've reached the mountaintop, there's nothing here. What was I fighting for! How wrong have I been in my life? This is a fear I've never known before, a fear of myself. Now where do I run?
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The Ogre is gone. Did I need the Ogre to keep giving me direction? It wanted to destroy me! Even now my heart burns in flaming fury at the intolerable thought of It! But is there something I missed? Was I lying to myself? Oh, how easy it was to see It as the enemy. I fought and resisted, clinging to my husband and family, twenty years of dutiful crucifixion.
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So what does this mean? My argument was true: a family is a good thing. But does a good thing suffocate you? Does it rip your desires in two like a torn Van Gogh painting? I can feel the knives piercing within me - the same very knives I thought to escape from the Ogre. My God, what have I done? To what did my anger blind me?
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I just woke from a nap. My heart was pounding! Panic surrounds me like a ring of fire. I hate being here. I hate doing my damned wifely duties. My life is nothing but chores! Is that any reason to live? Would the gardener ever suspect this is my life? His life will be chores till death. I watched him through the window, envious, feeling him more free than I. Does he feel humiliated pulling the weeds of another's garden? I feel humiliated in all things I do.
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Even the Bible harbors me no more. I use to love study class, but when Becky spoke last night it shattered me to my core. "You know what an unclean spirit is, it's when someone doesn't come clean!" NOOOOOOOOOO! Can't be! Coming clean is the wrong thing to do! It destroys the family! Oh, dear God, Jesus, this hurts. It's a pain so deep I dare not seek its bottom.
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Still reeling from Becky with that enthusiastic voice of hers. Never was I so desperate to lie, exposed before everyone in Bible study! Part of me wishes now I had cried out and let my pain be known. Would they have loved me regardless? Would anyone have understood? So much fear! It surrounds me like tall cliffs. I'm screaming now when it's safe and no one hears - or knows why.
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I'm wishing for the Ogre. I know it doesn't make sense. I feel like It's the only thing that knows me. Its message of doom can be no worse than the hell I live now. These words I write, is this good or bad? They sustain me in my woe but expose me to woe if exposed. My first instinct is always to lie - even when I don't need to, or even want to. I'm out of control!
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I snapped at my daughter and she won't speak to me now. I was completely in the wrong. But she does not "know" to lie like I do. She was being open and honest and I jumped down her throat for it. I've turned savage. I can hear Becky's voice again. "And you know what they say about unclean spirits in the Bible!" All my churchly activities and charities and sermons are useless in my salvation. But I dare not stop or they'll know something's up.
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I just don't want to talk anymore. What's the point? It only digs the hole deeper. I did womanly things without ever becoming a woman. I want a man to take me, force the lies out of me and tell me I'm beautiful. The Ogre only came to mock me, or so I thought. But since I know I hurt It, I know It only has revenge upon Its mind. What a mess I've made of my life. All the heavens must be moaning.
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Me again. Can I die now? I feel nothing. Am nothing. My mind is slipping from overwhelming disinterest. I almost want any fate possible other than the one where they find out I'm a liar. I've been secretly searching on pictures of women in chains. They excite me. If I did that would I then be free?
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I thought I believed in God but I don't. Not one single bit. I can't believe in anything if I can't be free. Is this what You want? For me to die? For everyone to die? Can You tell me there was another way? I'd sure like to know. Why hide it? Why can't I know?
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Oh shit, it was me. I ran from the Ogre. I remember it coming towards me, terrified, seeing the end of everything, but excited and hopeful. Hopeful! Why did I run? What news did it bring me? To make myself feel better I claimed it was news of the worst sort. News of pointed finger and final abandonment. But that's what I have now. Would the Ogre have saved me?
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I may not write again. I'm trying various self-punishments to atone for my living in sin. Wow, I used to say that on my high horse, about people living in sin. I'll never say those words again. I'm finding it hard to look down upon anyone anymore. I feel lower than the people I see on the news. At least they are known criminals.
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I thought of going up to a suited man I passed on the street and asking to suck his dick right there in the middle of the day. Then I imagined it being one of my husband's co-workers and that excited me more. How can I come clean to these things? As I went down I would tell him I want to swallow all his lies and hope he'd be proud of me. Oh hell, I don't want all my morality to be a lie!
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More images, more urges. The sky weeping and tired, the cliff inviting me to drive off. I just want to rest. My body decays daily from the stress. Who would believe a woman in a half million dollar home who does not work has stress? They'd call me crazy. And my stillborn pride is screaming not to give out. Would I be more moral to suck every dick in town? Or is that just another dead end too?
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Whither honesty? Whither truth? My body aches for the black capsule of death. I almost want to do it just to see the looks on their faces finding out life is not what it seems! Face the truth! But first, I must burn this before I go. I don't want them standing over me in judgment. Who the hell are they?
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With the courage of death I at long last opened the Ogre's letter. I'm sorry to report my first reaction was my usual reaction: burn and deny. It's a politician's life I lead. Yes, at first he mocked me. "Well, I see at least you lived up to your (fat) potential!" Funny, but I was fine with him saying that. My physical body has bloated just as my spirit has bloated with truths kept inside. No one else has asked the truth of me.
It was only the Ogre who believed in me. I was too scared to believe I had talent. I don't want anyone to believe I'm anything but a housewife! That's how he was going to expose me. A life wasted. I'd rather they believe me a slut and whore than that. What kind of fool am I to want to be known as UNtalented? What kind of journey have I been traveling? Now the ringing words are clear in my head: "Anything but truth". I cannot even face the stars at night.
Are there any options left? Have I left myself a way out? I have faced the truth - a little truth - but only in secret. In the movies some miracle always happens when someone pays the price for speaking out. What am I to believe? That I have talent that can sustain me? That I should bet my life on that lottery ticket? Every day is the same: a little bit older, a little bit colder...
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