Enough memories for now, I'm drowning already, no need to have them lying in wait for me here as well. Although there's nothing I can write, think about or see that doesn't remind me of her. Still, got to start somewhere.
I promised myself I wouldn't make any big decisions this year, fleeting emotions influencing permanent choices can't end well for me. Although I hot-footed it back to London as though my tail was on fire, quit my job, accepted a new one, bought a flat, sold my old family home. After all that, I made the promise and the sound of the stable door slamming shut was heard all over the city. And yet today things became so appalling that I called the specialist and made an appointment to chat about amputating my leg. I'd class that as a reasonably important decision. But at this point it's clearly more crazy to endure all this pain and anger when it's avoidable. You talk about amputation and people look at you wide-eyed like you've shouted an obscenity, but talk about painkillers and physical therapy and chronic pain and they nod sadly, pat your hand, say chin up! Silver lining! Doesn't hurt all the time right? Painkillers make it go away? And I lie but the truth would be...well yeah, it does and no, they don't. They fuzz things up so it still hurts but you just don't care.
It's been five years since the pain started. Three weeks in hospital, muscle death, drug-induced coma, medical jargon, smell of antiseptic. Just met my wife, barely six months together before everything went to hell. (Damn, memories already, almost made it a paragraph.) I broke up with her daily, all tied up in self-loathing, rage and animosity. She came back every day, endured my ranting, crying, watched me twist myself into knots around the pain. And finally when I begged her to leave me, just go, not see me like this...she did. She didn't come back for three months, forced me to piece myself together, find out how to walk, how to carry on. Day she walked back into the apartment she punched me in the arm, called me a rat bastard for making her leave me like that. Told me she'd been sneaking back during the three months, cleaning, leaving food, checking I'd taken my pills. Let me believe I'd done it all.
I guess that's the problem (one of them). During all that heartache I sort of re-made myself, rearranged things. Became harder, she said; harder to read, harder to be around, harder to understand, impossible to make me talk. Said she enjoyed the new peace and quiet (her face if she knew I was blogging, the shock would kill her). But even when I was reforging things she was there, all tangled up in what I became and now without her... I'm trying to pick apart the things which are so choked up with her that I can't bear them being here any more. Simple things, little things, ridiculous things like the way I make tea - even here, a thousand miles away from a decrepit gas burner and cracked green bowls. Licking a spoon, sharpening a knife, the way I hold a pen, way I hook my cane up on a door frame when I don't need it, stupid things that recall bright eyes and a peal of her laughter or an exasperated bark as she hits her head coming through the door. Quick fingers nesting in between my ribs until I give in, she's bent over me on the floor, poking me mercilessly until I pin her, hands above her head, hair spread out on the rough wood, smirking at me, one eyebrow raised, what are ya gonna do now, tough guy? Threats are useless, I'm a sap, a fool for this woman. Kiss her instead, that spot behind her jaw, determined to leave her more undone than I was under her sharp fingers.
One day all of this won't hurt. I'll manage an entire day without thinking of her once, maybe. Whether that will be more or less painful...I don't know.
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