Distance

Lately, I've been thinking about distance, measured in inches and miles and also the metaphorical space that can divide. Have you ever lay right next to someone, but felt like the span of The Great Wall of China separates you? Or have you literally been 4,681 miles away, but felt like they were everywhere, surrounding you? 

I've also been thinking a lot about love and what it actually means. I used to think that love was a meet-cute, a tight 90 minutes of troupes and misunderstandings, and then a happy ending, all tied up with a kiss and pretty red bow. But love is nothing like it is in a rom-com. Love isn't a fleeting feeling, but a decision you make every day. Every morning you wake up and choose to love the person beside you, even when they are as grumpy as a grandpa who yells at cats for stepping foot on their lawn. Or they always have a million chores when you just want to snuggle and watch Netflix. Or they have an opinion on literally everything but are shit at expressing their feelings. You accept their flaws and faults, stick by them when they have a fire inside. You love them anyway, no matter what, through the dark and the light, until the end of time. Sometimes I don't know how to love him, but I stand still and love him the best way I know how.

Distance

When I met him, his eyes were filled with war,

Of heartbreak, broken homes, of a slamming door.

A caustic man, he tasted of chaos and pride.

I didn’t know how to love him but stood by his side.

He twitched in his sleep, trapped on the battlefield,

Still fighting, always fighting, the wounds unhealed.

He was breathing fire but freezing in the cold.

I wanted to be the warmth, so I took hold.  

And I wouldn’t let go, even when he went quiet and dark.

I kissed him, trying to revive him, to bring back a spark.

But sometimes distance isn’t measured mile by mile.

It’s a world away, behind the emptiness of a smile.

But I remained, held on tighter, felt his heart begin to beat.

Leaves fell, leaving branches bear, the rain turned to sleet.

As the sun reached full tilt, he came closer, little by little.

Then I waited through another Fall when everything was brittle.

His world shifted, and finally, his soul opened to mine.

The baggage was checked, the past left behind.

Now the darkness is gone, replaced by a golden hue.

There is only sun and love, and me and you.

The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water

You are the shape of water but frozen solid through.

Your heart sealed up tight, your color a deep blue.

I turned the orange sun to you, hoping you would melt,

But you stayed locked in ice, hiding everything you felt.

So I climbed onto the slippery surface of your frozen lake,

Pressed the heat of my heart to you, praying it would take.

Slowly, you thawed, took on a liquid form, but I was so scared you'd leave,

So I fell through your shallows, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

I sunk down to the bottom, wanting you to surround me, to draw me in.

Before you I was wandering in a desert; I never knew I could swim.  

But you are the shape of water, ever flowing, always slipping through.

You have the power to cleanse or kill, and I can’t get ahold of you.

You boiled, spun me around, set your brackish waters to churn.

I sank deeper and deeper, lost in the darkness, making my lungs burn.

But I found your lakebed, and I kissed the glowing pulse of your core.

I sang to you a siren song as I calmed the waves at your shore.

You are the shape of water, the spring of life, a peace, and I could finally inhale.

For you are the harbor I've needed, always here when the others fail.

Water is a catalyst, changing everything it touches, tames the lands that roam.

So I grew gills, soaked myself in you and in you made a home.

“Why do you put up with me?” I asked as the moon sank, its time done.

“Because I was bitterly cold my entire life, and you brought me the sun.”

You hold me tight, buoying me up, weaving through everything I see.

You are the shape of water, the shape of love, the shape of you and me.

I just bought The Shape of Water, and it's a beautiful love story about a mute woman and a fish god. Bear with me for a moment, if you will. I know the premise sounds bananas, but you have more in common with that mute girl and the fish man than you think. Her love for him, this violent creature, changes him. Love saves him. It saves her. Love. Love will always be the most powerful emotion in the world. It changes men, changes worlds, changes history. Every person in this movie is lonely and looking for love. Some live for it. Some die for it. But like water, love can give us life or take it away. Love can be dangerous yet beautiful. The scariest thing that we constantly chase after. Water can be violent or calming, depending on the circumstances. Waters flood and destroy, wash everything away. Rivers can drown. Love has the same power. One time it can rip you apart, but the next it can rebuild. We live with the risk of love because, like water, we all need it to survive. 

Love can make you look past layers of a glass wall, into the frigid waters, through the hazel eyes of a tortured soul, to a man with war inside his heart, but it's a good heart, a kind heart. If the woman from The Shape of Water can love the monster out of a man, surely I can help carry some baggage, relieve some of the burdens, and love him out of the arctic abyss and bring him into the summer sunshine. But what if this love changes me, too? What if I shine the sun on him, and he sucks the rays of my light out and leaves me? I guess that's the risk. I'm diving into a frozen lake that might not have a lakebed. I might get lost in the depths, too. But maybe the water will thaw and nourish me, and I can make a life by the lake. Or I could drown. So you see, water and love are much alike, and I'm still trying to figure out if the water is going to sink me or save me. 

Living with a Monster

There are nights my dreams wake me past midnight.

I sit up with a start, heart beating in my chest.

And I still feel him, pressing me down,

Even though he is a thousand miles away.

The sharpness of his tongue still cuts into my soul.

When will he go? How many times do  I have to bury him?

Bruises heal, but those words stay forever, stuck in my side

Piercing my lungs.

The soles of my bare feet fall against the earth

As I try to outrun him. But there is no exit clause.

The monster is all I can see.

Then a hand reaches out in the darkness.

He doesn't use words, doesn't have to

Because in his silence, with his eyes on mine,

Everything is understood. Everything is bright and pink and love.
And the monster goes away.

Monsters aren't what goes bump in the night. They aren't hiding beneath your bed, in your closet, or down in the deep, dark basement. They come dressed as people, pretending to love you, only to gut you with a few well placed words. For a decade, I lived with a monster, tried to love him, tried to make madness a home. I was trapped inside the Twilight Zone, lost in a nightmare and it took a slap to the face to rouse me, to bring me back to life. But there are still days I live with the ghost of myself and a monster of a man. Most of the time I can fight him off, drown out his voice, but then there are days that I find myself back in the hellish dreamscape, down a darkened hallway with no window or doors, no way out. All I can do is curl up in a corner, eyes turned away from the monster, let the fear wash over me, let him say his piece and pray he's scared off by sunrise.

When you survive a trauma, especially one involving a war of words, you question everything. You live in constant fear. Your world is built on ever-shifting tectonic plates. At any moment, everything can collapse, and without warning, you're plunging into the black abyss. So when you rebuild on a stable mountain, you still have vertigo. You're phantom falling. You're still scared as hell.

How do you destroy a monster without becoming one? That's the hardest part for me. The part I'm still learning, even after four years. That's the thing with monsters, they never go away, not really. He still uses words against me. They come via texts messages, attacks on every part of me, and then the next is him telling me he still loves me. We owe it to our kids to be together. But then I'm a piece of shit mother and it's my fault he doesn't call or see his children. I try not to read the messages, but there they are in black in white, still tormenting me when he's three thousand miles away. Every time that monster sneaks in, I have to fight him back, and every time I do, a little piece of me blackens, turns to dust. It's never over, not completely. So I fight the monster everyday. Most days I win, but sometimes I don't. And that's okay.

Just breathe. It's my mantra. You wouldn't think I needed to be reminded of the simple act of breathing, but I do. Just breathe, Lauren. Live in the moment. Actually, enjoy the moment. And I guess that's how I survive. Keep going, keep living. Continue to love, despite that fact that it's terrifying. I'm learning that actions truly do speak louder than words because that's what really matters. The action, not the words. So thank you for loving me when a war still rages inside me. When the light in my eyes snuffs out. When I bristle and rage for no reason. Thank you for reminding me to breathe. Thank you for making love a little less scary.

Because you loved me at my worst, I will always love you best. 

A Hurricane of a Girl

A Hurricane of a Girl

I once tried to love a monster of a landslide, but his muck and mire and mud,

Buried me in wreckage, filled my lungs. I was lost in the flithy flood.

I dug myself out, trembling in the rawness, gathered my power, sent it flowing,

Languished in the tropics, simmering and burning and growing.

Heartbreak transformed my summer showers into a violent hunger.

My winds gathered, my rains became weighty, my anger wrapped itself in thunder.

I spun, ravenous for destruction, to make mankind pay for the landslide’s sin.

Then another reached out, touched me and his tide pulled me in.

He himself was always spinning. The earth never solid beneath his feet.

Without a touch, I felt him, deep inside, where the heat and cold meet.

He saw me churning, but for once stood still and watched me come.

Didn’t leave as the clouds blackened, as I blocked out the sun.

He was the fire I had been looking for, suddenly spoke my name.

In a lightning spark, we came together, became one and the same.

Then he hushed my madness, found the truth in my lies.

And he fell in love with me in the calmness of my Eye.

He never stunts me, but let’s my squalls swell, ebb and flow.

He surrounds the gales of my monsoons, never lets me go.

Once the torment subsides, he carries me back to shore.

We cling together, survivors of a self-inflicted war.

The need to fight turns inward, to a passion for only him.

He is chaos with a wink and a smile, a cyclone that allows me swim.

So we dance together on the breeze, in his arms I twirl.

A tornado of a man, the only one strong enough to love me, a hurricane of a girl.  

I have always loved hurricanes. Instead of terrifying me, they've intrigued me. I never hid from them but loved to stand in the middle of the torrential downpour, face turned skyward, arms outstretched, the rain pelting my skin. The thunder and lightning crackling around me as I soaked the storm's energy in. I have often felt like a hurricane myself, something more always brewing beneath the surface. The forecast tells you I'll be a little ole Category One, but then the winds will shift and I can lay waste to everything in your world. And like a hurricane, I can be intense, too much to handle if you aren't prepared.

Sometimes I think it can't be easy to love me. I'm irrational and anxious and question everything. I'm demanding and impatient. I will fight you and rage. At times, I will feel trapped and long for freedom. The next I will cling to you in despair, needing reassurance, an overabundance of accolades. My depression can creep back in and my world blacks out, and I hate everything, especially myself. Most people love the calm, but it makes me anxious. The stillness makes me nervous, makes me lose my mind. Like a hurricane, I need to be in constant motion. I live for the deluge, for the never-ending high tide, for the waves that don't kiss the shore but crash into it. I like the churning of the water, the howling of the gusts. I'm at home there. 

But my fire can be more sunshine than a blinding blaze. My light can warm a man who has been cold his entire life. He will now feel a sunrise in his bones. He will never be bored with the ever-changing tides, of a girl tied to the cycle of the moon. A girl wrapped in skin, but full of stars and scars, heartache, and illuminating brightness. It will be a challenge, but it will be worth it. It's better to love a hurricane than to wander in the barren wasteland of the desert, where you will die of thirst.

If I love you, my love never falters. I will hold you when your own fury tries to consume you and everyone surrounding you. I will love you out of it. I will save you if you let me. I will love you when you're desperate, when you're happy, when you're absurdly angry until the all the storms are over and there is only peace and wisps of white clouds in a cotton candy sky. Until the end of time, this hurricane will love you with such a passion that the sun will be jealous of the glow I give.    

Serendipity and a Hurricane

Serendipity and a Hurricane

Once you were a stranger, your name unknown, your story untold.

But there was something familiar in the way your eyes took hold.

Hours and drinks later, your hands were in my hair, your teeth against my throat.

A happenstance meeting right before a hurricane, a history rewrote.

You opened up, invited me into your life, your bed, your home.

You steadied my nerves and stilled my restless need to roam.

In your arms, you filled the empty spaces that were never whole.

The walled off words unsaid, you could always read them in my soul.

Now I know how you sleep with pillows surrounding you to ward off a nightmare.

It’s like you can read my mind, and yet we always lose my underwear.

We eat breakfast together on a lazy Sunday, bacon, toast, and eggs.

You get lost inside my mind and in between my legs.

When we make love, your fingers press into my hips.

You always know before I fall. You never let me slip.

Now your name is always on the tip of my tongue.

We may be older now, but this feeling forever makes us young.

One man changed my view on mankind.

Every insecurity, every doubt left behind.
You never were a stranger, even the night we met.

You were unavoidable. Everything about you was kismet.

Now our story is interwoven. Your eyes open to mine in the night.

Every darkness in my life burst into rainbows, happiness bathed in light.  

Every day, I thank serendipity for that hurricane.

It brought us together, flooded the city, and I’ll never be the same.

Do you still remember the electricity in the air the night we met?
Thunder and lightning and a storm no one can ever forget.
That spark is still between us, a fire in our eyes.
I'm drawn to you like the tides to the moons on the rise.
You were the poem I never could find words for.

The story I could never write, an unsung song at my core.

Wake Up

I started taking something for my depression and anxiety. So far,
it makes me feel less crazy, and I am enjoying the part where I
don't stress out and obsess about literally everything. I didn't
realize how bad it was until now. Before I started taking these meds,
I was in a dark place. A place I've been before, and always hate to be. But
the sun had never been so eclipsed. Whenever I find myself in that hole,
I always call out to my grandmother who passed away a few years ago.
She had always been a source of strength when she was alive, and I continue
to depend on her, even in her death. When things get bad, I remind myself that
Edith Jenkins wouldn't stand for this. I often feel her with me, guiding me.
She was with me when I was losing my mind.
She helped bring me out of it. She helped me wake up.


Wake Up

She buries herself in a porcelain grave,

The water turning pink, lapping at her skin,

The warmest embrace she’s felt in a while.

Last night she scratched through the thin flesh

Of her wrists, trying to pull out the pain.

Searching for a word that no one wants to speak.

For years she’s suffered, silent, motionless

From a sickness in her blood, her brain,

Passed down from mother to daughter, mother to daughter.

She holds her breath until her lungs burn, sinks deeper.

All of it fades, blurs around the edges.

But suddenly her grandmother’s voice echoes

Wake up.

Thank you to the people who stuck by me during this frantic section of my life.
Thank you for not making feel crazy. Thank you for sitting by my side and waiting
for me to wake up.

Living in a Box of Darkness

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It's fine."

This has been my mantra, and I have hoped that if I say enough to you, to myself, to the world, that it would be true. That I would really be okay. Mind over matter. A placebo pill, if you will. But fact is, the words don't work, and I'm not okay.

I have debated whether or not to share this, but I am finished being afraid to talk about the bad stuff. I'm sick of being ashamed of something I can't control. I'm done with people thinking a person has the power to just stop being sad. Have you ever told a chemo patient to just stop having cancer. Nothing is that simple, especially this. 

For as long as I have memory, I have battled with depression and anxiety. But, Lauren, you're so happy! You're always smiling! Your glass is always half full! Believe me, I have wanted to deny it, and a lot of the time, I am truly happy, but with light, there comes darkness, and sometimes, mine is more powerful than anything else. I have hidden from it, pretending there hasn't always been this big, black box full of darkness beneath my bed. I have tried cutting it to bits, locking it away, boarding it up, wrapping it in plastic, suffocating it, but the darkness does not die. It always seeps out, always consumes, weighs me down, heavy bricks upon my chest, slowly crushing my ribs. The sadness isn't constant. It ebbs and flows like the tides. Sometimes the darkness is bone-dry, nothing but soft, wet sands, filled with ripples and seashells. I can sink the soles of my feet into it and peace is all I know. But then as the summer sea breeze flows through my hair, one second warming me, bringing me light and love, but suddenly the waves rush in. The rip currents pull me into the deep, drag me under, and I can't move. I can't feel anything, not even the wet. Water fills my lungs. All I can do is sink deeper, watching the world overhead through the clear brink. Unable to scream for help. Unable to breathe. And always, right before drowning for good, the waves subsided and I can gulp in air once again. I can go on living, a little damp, a little exhausted, a little less alive, but I am still here.

But the thing about my depression is I've always been able to keep it in check. I've always been able to wrestle that blackness back into its box, but this year the darkness has done me in. It has overwhelmed me, depleted me, threatened to block out the sun forever. I have let only a few people know what's really going on behind my bright, brown eyes. And this last week, I have scared them. I terrified myself, too. Last week, something within me slipped. The resolve to hold it all together, my last ounce of sanity--it all left me. I went numb, the world blurred as the blackness slipped through the cracks of its box, and filled the spaces in the hollows of my heart, leaked into my brain.

There is such a stigma with mental health. I, myself, have cracked too many jokes about how long and thick the crazy branches are on my family tree. I have always thought I was stronger than this. That I could will the sadness away. But if I had cancer or a broken leg, there would be nothing holding me back from going to the doctor. All of our brains are made differently, and my brain makes me overreact, or go paralyzed, or hate myself with such intensity that everything but that antipathy is all I can feel. How can someone so pretty and healthy and smart and funny, so seemingly perfect, wish she was someone else? I know this doesn't make sense to you. I don't understand it myself, but it's my reality. And there is a way to fix this, to make my brain better.

This is all supposed to come full circle to my New Year's Resolutions for 2018. I will be kinder to myself. This is something I have always, always struggled with and it has caused me to suffer. How do you deal with an enemy when it's you? How do you love yourself when everything about you is wrong? This is what I need to figure out. This is what I must reconcile in 2018. Get right with myself and get to a happier, healthier place. My mental health is my top priority. Most importantly, I'm going to the doctor to get on medication for anxiety and depression. I'm also going to stop eating cookies for dinner. And love more freely. Oh, and run a marathon, maybe? Nah. I'll just keep going to the gym.