thoughts from the raft. #1

she'd been gone for so long. she stood on the cracked footpath in front of the house and stared up at the boarded windows and old tyre swing. she smiled briefly at the remembrence of her brother squealing with delight as she pushed him harder and higher. a couple of times he fell off yet still he was lost in the ecstasy of childhood wonder. she looked at the windows that framed the front door. on the right was her parents' bedroom, the scene of many a vocal and angry fight. even more so after he went away. to the left was the living room, where she and her brother would watch television turning it up even louder to try and drown out their parents' warring. her bedroom was in the back of the house. it overlooked the back yard. the window in her brother's room faced the side space. and it was from here that he disappeared. nine years old and slightly built. he had a slight limp from an operation when he was 6. she should have heard something that night. their beds abutted the same wall. she heard nothing. not a whimper. not a shriek. nothing. he father accused her of some misdoing. she can't remember what but she remembers he apologised. her mother said nothing. she just cried. day after day they waited for bobby's return and day after day the disappointment grew. during those days she heard words she'd never heard before. pervert. paedophile. cunt. and what became her father's mantra, goddamn-son-of-a-fucking-motherfucking-shitheel-of-a-humanbeing. over the months she watched her mother deteriorate before her eyes. the doctors gave her something to numb the pain and so she did. she felt nothing. her father spent hours driving the streets looking for his boy. he always came home disappointed. once they heard a rumour that bobby had been seen interstate. that was 3 years after he was taken. her father got in his car and drove the thousand kilometres to bring his son home. he came home alone. not long after that her father left for good. she begged him not to go. he told her he had to. there was nothing left for him here. she never forgot that. and she never saw her father again. now here she was standing in front of her childhood horror house. still looking for answers but only finding more questions.

she made a mistake. it didn't feel like one when she made the decision but it sure felt like one when he turned his back on her. when she listened to the messages he left on her answering machine, she could hear the hurt in his voice. she needed some time to deal with her life. she woke that morning feeling more overwhelmed than she had felt in along time. she'd thought he's understand. what it was she didnt understand was what had become his reliance on her for his sanity. the threats he left on her machine were benign. They weren't about her, she knew that. they were about him feeling hurt for not being involved in a process he thought should be a joint effort. he'd never deny her sapce, but he felt he should have at least been consulted. she thought he was stronger. later when she spoke to him about it, he said he was strong enough to deal with her absence. but what he didn't like was the fact that she excluded him from a decision that affected both their lives. she told him all she was asking for was space. for the next few days she needed to get her head straight and she told him she knew that if she broached the topic with him he'd just try and talk her out of it. he said that was bullshit. she wasn't in the mood to debate this with him. she resolved never to make the same mistake again. he meant too much to her to alienate like that again. sitting so close to him she could feel the heat coming off him, she reached out and laid her hand on his cheek. he turned his head and kissed her palm. she asked him just to hold her. so that's what he did. he wrapped his arms around her pulling her body into his and held her tight.

i woke up thinking about you this morning. they were pleasant thoughts. but they were also slightly disturbing thoughts as well. they were a direct challenge to me and stopped me cold. you told me what you were willing to do and it thrilled me. you were strong and unpliant. a part of me wants that. a small smile spread across my face. i wiped it away just as quickly. i rolled over to face my lover. asleep. unaware of how my mind was dancing at possibilities that repelled me, yet drew me also. could i seek from another what i didnt get from him. what he wasn't willing to give me. i reach out my hand to feel his warm skin. when i smile this time it is because of my feeling for this man who gives me everything. except... again you sneak into my head. this is ridiculous. but i want it. if i said i wasn't reticent i'd be lying. can the trust be there enough for me to let go. can i live with the betrayal i know i will feel if i allow you to touch me. but a spark has been lit. i wonder how to tend it. or even if i should.

he thought he knew her. he didnt know her at all. she knew that. she allowed him to see only what she wanted. what she thought would keep him close. when she was alone she let everything else out. on a couple of occasions he caught her in the middle of one of her turns and it stopped him cold. each time he thought was the last time. each time he was mistaken. he loved her. he told her enough times for her to believe it. and more importantly he believed it. she wanted to break him. to see if she could. she was sure she could. it would be her pleasure. and she would be victorious. she gave him all that he wanted and sometimes more. she held him so close he could hardly breathe. and she drew strength from his incapacity. he never thought he'd go too far or that he'd fall when she was around, cause she swore she'd always be there to catch him. but who would be there to catch her? there was no one and that was the beauty. she would disintegrate and she would take him with her. it was not a noble journey but it was an honest one. did that make it noble? he could walk away anytime he wanted. she'd told him that. and she told him that only because she knew he wouldn't walk away. he couldn't. he wanted to go where she was going and he wanted to go there with her by his side. if she stopped he would stop. if she continued he would not hesitate. he was as destructive as she was. they were both their own and each others' worst enemy and best friend.

what a fool she'd been. trying to make sense of what was inside. keeping things at a distance and with no success. why should she bother. why should she bother at all. was there something she wasn't seeing. or did she see it plainly but choose to ignore it. is denial just another lie or some test to be passed. she threw aside the curtain and let the morning sunshine in. it bathed her whole body in its warmth and she wanted to drink it all in. but there was still the shadow. a coldness that enveloped her and she could not rid herself of its spectre. she turned her back to the outside and stared at the seemingly lifeless form half hidden beneath the blankets. it was then that she realised what she was looking at was representative of her whole life. every morning she woke up but she sleptwalked through her life. she breathed as they all did, but she never felt alive. she tried to end her life, but somehow she kept on living. she surrounded herself with people she had no respect for because she could use them. she said she loved them but she didn't. she needed them and she wanted them, but what she felt for them was...nothing. is feeling nothing feeling something? does she feel nothing for these people cause she feels nothing for herself? no, that's not true. she does feel something for herself. she feels disappointed and a slow boiling hatred that she manages to mask with a plastered smile and quick wit. she learnt long ago that people want you to feel the same way they are feeling. if they are happy than you better bloody be happy as well. otherwise you are discarded and shunned like some major malfunction of human society. why can't you be happy? what's wrong with you? what have you got to be sad about? you're just so ungrateful, plenty of people have got it worse off than you. no shit sherlock. but those people are not me. i don't want your pity or you're mocking comfort. i want to be left alone. if you want me to be more like you, leave me alone. if you see yourself in me or are afraid that maybe sometime soon you can see yourself gazing at your lover and feeling nothing for them but an overwhelming urge to run, then leave me alone. you are nothing to me. only to myself am i something. and as i walk across the room to slide once again beneath the blankets, that something slowly melts into nothing.

i had a thought today, as i often do. but it was so ephemeral that it was as if i'd never had it in the first place. it came to me and yet i could not grasp it. i reached out but it danced beyond me and turned its back. as i said, i get these thoughts often and it both pleases me and causes me dismay. i like that my mind is so active and that it can amuse itself with not much effort when i am otherwise occcupied. but conversely i dislike that my mind gets beyond me. when i need silence and calm it nevers comes. it is an annoyance that when i need to, or even when i just think i am in need of it, concentration eludes me. i work to write everything down so i don't forget it. my memory is so vague at times that should a good thought pass through, if i don't immediately jot it down, it is bound to escape to a place i can retrieved it from.

ever told someone you'll talk to them on a certain day and spend the rest of the week busting out of your skin cause you want to talk to them before that. so you bite your tongue cause you know they need their space. and you know you have to respect that space. and honouring that respect is a battle of wills wholly within yourself. inside your head you have these one sided conversations going through all the things you want to say to the person. these are the thoughts running through my head. thoughts i can't share. thoughts that will go unspoken. thoughts that are for someone who will never hear them.

no one paid her
any attention.
after she was gone
they said
they never noticed anything
was wrong.