susiesaul

[susiesaul]

They say, or at least Victor Hugo did, or was it sang? Even the darkest night will pass and the sun will rise...

Yet - -

Endless night of overthink.

Experiential moments when fleeting darkness seems eternal and that dawn doesn't rise until your thoughts have exploded in a multicolour of black. When all that is lost is vast and a void to pull into the abyss of constant recrimination - where you judge yourself so harshly that a tangled ball of yarn is less stricken with complexity of weave....

You are alone. Yet not alone. You are individual, yet not unique. You are deep waters with a calm surface. A torrent of electrical impulse and poor control....

Stop!

Stop that thought. Manage it like this. Turn it on its head and then... Poof! Like the proverbial rabbit from the hat, all that empty empty will be filled with wonder.

Where once you see nothing but hopeless abandon, there is a field of corn to be harvested from a withered wheat... When all is bleak, avoid that edge of spiralling un-reason...

You are alone... No. Never. Whether you meet or not, whether you like it or not, there is an individual to whom we resonate. To whom we lean and they lean back, a roof over our heads of despair...

So, take what little meaning you find and carry that tiny diamond wrapped in coal. Nurture it until all that sparkle bursts forth in a thousand lights...

For if the darkness doesn't pass by itself, you can at least light your own way out....

[susiesaul]

An overcast sky and an ill wind. Whipping up and turning leaves. Brushing everything with dark dishumour....

Deep valley of green variation crested with the autumn brown of late September. And in this valley the dancing of bleak working despair. Crippling hope, crying victory over good fortune.

The harvest had been especially bad that year. Famine had hit hard in the borders. The reivers might have been a memory of grandparents, a tale to tell cautionary over barncakes and hot hot ale. Eyes wide at the horror of treason and tragedy. Pillaging that came not from viking raiders of begone times but vivid as broad blue horizon above -

Wading through mud flats of rivers, washing mercenary greed as they strove to the shoreline...

Little eyes wide over the dark cot quilts as their ears sponged up the stories of dare and destruction.

"And its true...? All true?" They cry, chubby sweaty hands catching out in the evening as smiling faces look above, out scaring, out tale-ing each other.

"Oh aye," Is the cry in return, "oh aye," patted back down into the warmth of the crib, "now, you rest a while and hold y'blah til morning."

Unsettled and startled they accede and acquiesce.... Confusion marring youth. Pensive expressions mirrored as they take in fictional facts - of monstrous characters so close to home.

Within walking distance on a clear spring day. When the rabbits bob like water buoys in the fields of grassy green waves... Swaying, swishing....

[susiesaul]

I'm finding it hard to be myself.

I'm finding I hate my children.

Myself.

My life.

I'm finding it hard to not just turn into a ball of bitter frustration and cry until my very soul ebbs into nothing.

Then I can be alone in my grief of who I used to be.

This is dark.

Relentless.

And I'm guilt fuelled and enraged at my own weakness and sadness in the world.

It's my birthday tomorrow.

And today is shit.

[susiesaul]

The choice was made and in that time

Those words which came

Which carried such certainty of emotion

Of thought

Which carried through support

Changed -

Suddenly that carpet was pulled from under feet.

Suddenly that self doubt crept in

As the earth became quicksand.

And once again there was solitude when before there had been a companion.

Walking on unstable ground.

Alone.

And then the recriminations set in.

That the choice had been wrong.

That the words had been false.

And I push on through,

Supporting myself by feeling the walls

(where there are some)

By feeling the hurt and the man

And trying so hard to not float off

Carried by the tide of sorrow which floods like a tsunami in winter when the words come out again.

I can't do this.

Every fibre of my being says you are false.

Because why would you want your cake and to eat it when it has turned sour?

Just take a heartbeat to hear me.

Just take a moment not to judge me.

Just love me with your all.

Just hurt me less please.

[susiesaul]

Creativity blooms in the darkest depths of night, when the bleakest thoughts give way and a seed of an idea blossoms forth a fruit of purity of the empty mind...

[susiesaul]

I drink the air

See the birds, soar and sway,

Catch the sky

Still blue, still here, still dotted with cotton...

Cushioned on the ground

I walk with upturned face,

Rising heart

Rapid thought -

Let all this poison flow away,

Let all this self doubt

Perversive, insidious voice of others,

Disperse to nothing...

I drink the air

It fill my lungs

And in one breath I breathe out life...

[susiesaul]

The tumbleweed of time spun in tight little circles across my vision. Blurred as it was with exhaustion. From one peripheral horizon to another...

The weight, the burden, the determination to go forwards. Ever forwards on a linear path in life, to step just once, an inch closer everyday to the relentless reality of wakefulness...

Occasionally I just can't.

Occasionally I just have to stall it. Switch the engine off. A hard reset.

Occasionally I just don't have that superpower to surge to a goal. To wake up breathing positivity.

A lot of the time it is distracting glitter. Shiny shiny to decoy us into believing meaning.

And occasionally I remember to switch the filter. Then the monochrome negatives hoves into view and I can mentally sigh with relief.

There may not be another day like today, there may not be originality of thought, deed or person...

And occasionally, when all is said and done, there may not even be a reason for any of this, that or the other...

But who's cares if you keep the blinkers on? And so to another day on the wheel. Lonely, lost and little going up and up - -

Soon it will all come down to sleep..

[susiesaul]

A smile belies the eyes, and in that conflict the sweetest rose

Carries thorns.

Tests the mettle as you pick your way through the tricky deception of truth and the fallacy of a pretty mouth pouted to pour honeyed words in your ear.

But stay -

Listen to that little voice, heard only by your inner mind and marry that with the honest lies you tell yourself to wander in life.

Is there a difference? If you find a comfort in that sound of flowery imitation prose does it matter whether the source of it was serenely honest? Or would it fall deaf, the principle being too high for you to feel safe in a moment of ignominious loving of a liar born to tempt.

Look above the mask...

[susiesaul]

Take a moment

Take a breath

Just pause. What's your deal?

Because in a minute, you'll be fine,

This isn't real -

Stop the clock, wind it back, hold your heart in your hand...

Twist it tight. Let it go -

You'll be fine and no one knows...

In that heartbeat, find the truth and it grows

So vast.

So far...

Reach the star and pull it down.

See the twinkle as it fights, flickers once and then ignites.

Take a moment.

Take a breath.

Breathe it out and let it rest...

[susiesaul]

They say in The Rush that time has snagged. That it is fragmented and broken up. Oddments of eras long past and still to come. They say in The Rush the stillness before the noise means you'll be taken.

In The Rush, the swirl and headiness makes you lose yourself. And people disappear. Babies, toddlers, teens and adults. The old, the infirm, the lost and the found. In The Rush there is no discrimination.

Of course, people say many things. But The Rush is a strange place. A circle of trees fenced in a fenced field. Sat on the horizon, it catches light at dusk and dawn but never returns it. No one plays near. No birdsong ever comes from within.

I don't listen to the myths. The tales and urban legends. I bought the field, and therefore The Rush. I bought the woodland and the curious relics I stumble over nearby. I bought the delapidated cottage with the oil fuelled heating and the frankly unsafe electricity supply. I was too busy to think about the Rush.

What it could do. What I might find. Who or where I might go. For me, it wasn't something I needed. But The Rush is patient. And history always catches up with you. Sometime I might need a place to run to. To get lost in.

The Rush never returns. It takes. Absorbs. Embraces. Once you go to The Rush, you can never come back. Not unless, or if, The Rush allows it.

Perhaps I should have listened more closely. However my marriage was breaking down so I was distracted. Breaking up. Becoming littered pieces of a former self.

The best kind of occupant for The Rush. It could wait.

[susiesaul]

Sometimes silence isn't calm.

Sometimes it sounds so loud it fills your ears with noise and you can't hear for unspoken words.....

And when you are alone it beats like a heart marking time.

[susiesaul]

It wasn't a theme park - -

So macabre. I dream that I am breaking into a concentration camp; that I couldn't afford the entry fee to look at murdered life...

There was a tunnel next to a wood, half covered with foliage and concrete. It was quiet and dark. Hushed tones to exchange wristbands in...tagged and ready...

The walk through was wet, slimy and arduous. I imagine it thriving on hate and that the dank is all that remains when that red energy has gone....the embarrassed ugliness of being wrong and blind.

The tunnel opens up to a courtyard through an iron gated door. There is no breeze. Cloying fetid sadness and stale air.

A handful of people mill around, peering voyeurists into burnt graves...

In the middle the gravel crunches underfoot, to the edges it is worn into dirt. And I'm with 2 people. I do not know but they wanted me to see. I feel burdened by guilt and pride. I feel heavy for breathing. In the stone rooms to the side, concave chambers with different purposes but ultimately all the same intent:

Dehumanise. Dissociate.

One plaque reads 'for the eucharist'. I'm not religious and I don't know it's meaning. I haven't read up on where I am. Only that it housed death and fed it lives.

I, too, peer in and there is a makeshift altar and pews. But the image doesn't sit right, the back wall is sooted and I wonder when in panic they were burnt here. Whilst they worshipped and prayed. Lambs. So many lambs.

The others are nodding, small smiles as if they hold all the understanding they need.

'See? How they tried...they didn't know'

But culpability persists. The officers, the soldiers, the staff - the people - they knew.

They must. And how did their consciences get salved to the cries? How did they sleep and know what the morning, the night and the day held.

It wasn't my order. It wasn't my intent. I just carried the scythe and dealt the blow whilst I watched the world order burn and crumble.

Whilst flames raged. Fires uncontrolled and borne in passion of persecution.

I turn from this and cross to a bureau with an old desk light, so close to the others that mimic it that there can have been no dignity in open interrogation. They stand by a double large wooden door, hewn from thick stoic timber...

The love bureau it is called, the plaque on a plinth states. And I read that at times romances blossomed between those that were captive and the captors. Like the worst Stockholm syndrome. Knowing that there was no escape and that only small gestures, small moments, sustained the stillness of the waiting tomb.

When these romances came to light, both individuals were brought to each desk and made to talk about everything. About the sordid and the spiritual. About why and when and what. And that small moment, the small sparkle of light, was extinguished by others who had no heart. Who could envisage no humanity.

I imagine sitting and hearing my heart say one thing and listening with false hope as I was told so many others. So many lies by heads that those doubts ripped my life blood with more pain from my chest than any other physical torment and choke...

Because this love bureau beat at the heart of hate. Because to break another is to take hope. To turn love into doubt and shred it is to take what makes us human and makes us all monsters in skin...

To hate is to love in fear, and to twist it into a devil that doesn't accept life. Doesn't accept truth and love. It feeds on the lust of the easiest way out and makes a mockery of those who have faith enough to believe in the goodness of the individual. In the innocence of the idea that love will out.

That is what I dreamed last night. A concentration camp so grotesque that it never existed...and my mind made it real for a night.

When I woke I heard the sound of my child from the room next door. Heard him cry for mum and a dad, who couldn't stay....

It was 5.30am and dawn had broken through the dark. But I am still alone in waiting. And the love bureau is closed.

[susiesaul]

You are an awful disgusting human being, he says.

Tears streaming down my face I listen to this man I still love....

I HATE you. Stay away from me for your safety - our child looks on. And I cannot see him. I cannot reason with him.

He is in my house, playing dad. He is late for his first contact and I miss work because his alarm hasn't been switched on.

I miscarried 3 days previously and I am still wearing a large pad, clots of potential life pour out of me. And he's telling me that I need to stop being emotional. That I need to be logical. That I am unreasonable.

I had told him to leave because he can't understand how much it hurts. How getting up every morning in this house we had chosen together - that he had wanted - that requires time and patience and love and nurture - how it all makes me feel so tired.

I'd necked 15 cocodamol in front of him the night before. He said he would say he hadn't seen it. That he knew nothing about it. If only I'd had oblivion then I would have felt 100 times better.

And if I had? He would not have run to his son. He would still have been late in the morning.

I hadn't eaten since Saturday? Maybe Sunday - and he made me chicken and couscous. He says he would have made it for anyone. That he didn't want me using it against him. Like a weapon.

He's taken his ring off and says he's going to fuck whoever he wants. That I am nothing to him. Why would I spend time with you?

Because we laugh at the same things. ..

Because we smile at the same time....

Because we care about the same things and think in the same way from different angles....

Because I know we are both flawed and I have been myself and honest and hurt and you have stopped drinking to excess and turned a corner. Because I gave you a purpose and now it doesn't fit with what you want.....

I can't leave. I can't go anywhere. I can't escape. I can't think.

It all just overwhelms and I wish I was back on the bed in the Brow laughing with you and listening to your dreams and making plans for our future.

You said you'd never felt this way. That this would be the last time.

And I wish it was. I wish that my sad little kidneys would stop completely. That my heart would burst and I could be free.

Not trapped by circumstance and wishing it was 10yrs ago. We had a painful hug once - when you were engaged and I seemed unavailable. Shared a sandwich on the beach and told each other that we were in love.

All these little moments - threads that fray and then break. It seems like a moment ago. Midnight car rides and blood moons.

I miss you. I miss you being curt and then kind....miss you being harsh and then funny....miss how I want to snuggle into your side on the sofa and feel safe and secure and loved.

But you tell me not to come near you. For my own safety. And that you love me deep down - - buried so deep it is a squashed bread in a bag for life under all the tins. Badly packed shopping....and then that you hate me. That I change the plans.

That I can trust you. But that I am manipulative. Vindictive.

It all hurts and I can never trust again. Never be me. Because no one wants that.

I am not enough. Love is not enough. We are not enough.

But like an embarrassing heart always does I hope. I hope. I pray. I dream. I yearn. I will love.

[susiesaul]

There is nothing harder than hindsight. Than thinking back and realising that everything you've done. Everything you've said.

It never mattered. It never went in. I have loved with a passion few can appreciate and fallen so far because of it's insidious insecurity.....

I am not unique. I am not special. I am one woman in the world of wishes and my hindsight has broken everything I love and treasure.

It broke him.

And now me. I can never escape the crushing weight of unspoken apology and regret. I can never repair the damage that resentment has done.

I can't heal the moment, let alone the past...and for that I have lost the future.

My future lies untrodden. Uncrowded by the people it should have in. And I am bringing the same to the next generation - because we never learn and we never heal and we can never let go.

Except me. I break the chain and watch it snap and see my boat sail to the horizon whilst I wait on the shore never for it to the return again.

I loved with a passion few can appreciate. Including myself....

[susiesaul]

The moonless clouded sky....pitch above and sending only shadows on the landscape below.

Reflective water shimmers and it is as if the whole picture is of endless night.

On the edge of the clearing crackling embers. Small orange sparkles sent into the air. Tendrils of dizzying dying smoke coil upwards...upwards. The camp encased in quiet. Bow top wagons - 7 in total - encircle the remains of the firelight...against the mountainous greenery of pine they look so little. So disproportionately small....

Occasional flickers of candlelight can be seen from the interiors of the wagon. Lighting silhouette. Giving puppets life, purpose.

[susiesaul]

It's that silent scream. Comes from deep within and while talking pleasantly enough it is eating up the inside. So slowly. Overwhelming noise that drowns out the tedium.

Arggghhhhh just one. Just one long low wail of what the fuck. When did this happen? When did words lose reason and explanation dried up to be replaced with that single sound of sheer frustration. Despair. The scream of humanity as it catches sight of what has been and what can never be again.

Substitute. Substitute it all. People places things. Personality. Become someone else. Become a ghost to those who would deny you life anyway. Because you didn't do what was wanted. Couldn't accept. Couldn't be less than that inner scream.

Every day. Every damn day waking and working and wanting - what? What could there possibly be? Anything. Everything. Nothing. Marie Antoinette the entire episode and let them eat cake.

It's all about the number 1. Is it? Why is my number so wrong? Why is it more than singular? What has gone awry that means I can't see myself for looking at others. I would love to shirk and shy away and not focus on his and this and that and her and him.

Twinge of chest pain and that inner rage boils and simmers. I'm not angry. I'm disappointed because I had no expectations and you had them all along.

So I'll bite the inner scream down some more and scribble it out to make it feel better about its trapped life. And my own.

[susiesaul]

The validation will never be your own. And your heart will break first...