Diary entry, March 14, 2004

Please be with me.  Please help me not to be afraid or resentful.  Please help me to accept where I am while at the same time never losing sight of hope.  Please help me to be grateful for what I have.  Please help me to see beauty when all seems so ugly.  Please never abandon me.

Hypocrisy

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

--William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 3

Tomorrow is Crying for You, Much Later

            Despair rose up in me like a flash flood, so quickly that it almost reached my heart, when I heard a snuffling.  The dog who smelled like cake shuffled out from behind an overgrown bush.  “Are you real?” I asked her.  “Or are you going to disappear, too?”

            She cocked her head and bared crooked teeth at me, as if to say, does it matter?

            I dropped down to the ground next to her.  When I wrapped my arms around my knees and began to cry, she butted her head against me until I laid a hand on her back.  The setting sun was hot on my neck.  “You won’t be safe here,” I scolded her.  “You should go back into the woods, where’s it cooler.”

            But she wouldn't move. 

            Tiredly I leaned back against the damp, cold ground.  When I closed my eyes I heard some more snuffling, and then felt her fuzzy head against the palm of my hand.  We will be safe tonight, I thought to myself.  Tomorrow was anybody’s guess.   Absolute safety would never be mine to have.  It simply didn't exist.

            Eventually I fell asleep.

            For a while it was the heavy, almost painful sleep of the mentally exhausted.  Soon, however, something began to lift, and dreams began floating in, impossible to chase down at first, until finally one settled comfortably in front of me and opened up a panoramic view.

I walked through an empty, rickety house.  Finally I reached the room with the door leading outside.  It was open.  Before I could leave, however, I noticed a solitary painting on the wall.  In reds and golds and browns it depicted a wood in autumn, the leaves gently falling to the ground. 

I jumped when I heard someone behind me.

Alone, Pt. 2

I talk to God but the sky is empty.

--Sylvia Plath

New Year's Eve

This sea               filled with raging suspicions

polluted by the debris         of 1000 amazing inventions

not one in which I could believe

were you caught

in the firestorm of a million

conversations

or lost

in a dying admission

because just one thing I can show

and that is I am here                          

without you                         

alone

               

perhaps                 

just as it should be

but in our graveyard of

convictions

one last night

of fading ambition

your promise on the end of my fingertips

and it falls

it falls

daylight a shade too deep

I want to know

one day I must know

was it ever thus?

the clouds mirrored in our eyes

the end of apology

the apocalypse of

us

               

Alone

I am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it.

--Charles Dickens

Letter from Erica, 1991

Dad is going to be here in 41 minutes, and then I can say "goodbye" to my serenity.  It all comes down to me being able to accept our family members for who they are, but it's so much work sometimes.  Dad & I get along fine when we stick to certain topics.  But, once in a while, I need to take rests away from him.  You know, like a little mental health break.  Sometimes I feel like I'll always be riding on this roller coaster.  I wish I could find a nice flat plateau to walk on for the rest of my life.  But for some reason I think that's too idealistic to be true.  If I ever find it, though, I'll certainly let you know where it is so you can walk on it, too!