Frustration

[bookofmirrors]

ARGH!!

This is fucking ridiculous! I feel so..... I'm sure there's a word for it. Where you know there's something more and you can't access it. I want to write something. And I'm tired enough that I think I'm in a mindframe where my psyche stands on the edge of a knife. I could fall down into the deepest despair, or I could be moved to tears by a moment of extraordinary beauty. And I could express it, insofar as words make that possible. But, instead, I hover, fearing to leap in any direction, feeling the blade against my skin, and wondering when it will

slice

And wondering what will pour out when it does.

I remember the time I took blade to flesh, in a moment of... of what? I don't know, really. Rage, despair, fear, defiance? A bit of each, perhaps. I remember watching the flash of silver as it came in contact with my arm. I remember waiting for the pain that never came as I watched my skin split flawlessly. Soft pink revealing more pink beneath. Pale.

It took it a long time to bleed.

Watching the blood rise to the surface, then pour out. Fascinated by it. The world stopped in that moment. Feeling a bit of relief as I stared at it, as if it were bleeding out that which I dared not express, couldn't even recognize. Time skips for me then. I recall that Leo was in the room when I did it. But I don't remember him there. I don't remember anything except suddenly having Fig's jacket on, so that I could walk through the house without Leo's mother noticing the blood pouring down my arm. I remember being in the bathroom. I remember Fig being there with me, and I think someone else was in there, too. I remember the bottle of rubbing alcohol in my hand, and pouring it over the cut. Still no pain. Fig bandaging it.

Is it any wonder I fell in love with this man?

Time skips... in bed with Leo. Contrite, but still angry. Rubbing my blood over his face against his protests, licking it off, because I felt it to be symbolic somehow. Of what, I couldn't say, then or now.

Why in the world did I ever marry him?

I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that he seemed to bring out that worst in me. Wanting just to die. Passive-aggressive bullshit, to be sure, but not lacking in genuine despair. I loved him, nonetheless. Lost myself in him. Not his fault.

And what of Fig?

Much later. Close to the end of my first marriage. Small details blot out the larger picture. Laughing without malice as Leo fumbled with the controls to Mortal Kombat II. I should have known he already felt inadequate next to Fig and Mark. I did, really. I knew he might take it badly. But I was hoping he didn't. It was just a fucking GAME. But my laughter set him off.

Skip.

Angry. Driving. On my way to a hotel for the night, praying I had enough on the credit card to be able to stay. Getting madder and madder as I drove. Suddenly being furious that I was leaving MY house to stay in a hotel just because I was mad at HIM. Turning around and driving back. Jessica on the couch. Storming into the bedroom. Recognizing almost immediately that he was ready to apologize, but not caring. On top of him, screaming incoherently. The only time in my life I've ever lost control like that. I remember "How dare you?" and "I hate you" but little else.

Skip.

In the bedroom with him. Lights on now. Was this the same episode, or much later? I don't remember. I think it was the same episode. Sitting in front of the door, not letting him leave. Goddammit, how fucking pathetic I was, how desperate. Telling him I would rather die by his hand than have him walk away just then. His frustration level rising, until he yelled at the other people in the house to get me out of there before he hurt me. Storming out of the room, going after that same knife. Holding it out to him, spitting out the words, telling him that if he was gonna hurt me, he'd better do it right. Fig taking the knife from me. I didn't fight him.

He left. Walking down the street to cool down, some of the guys going with him. Screaming incoherently himself.

Fig stayed with me. Took me in his truck when I asked him to. Let my lie down with my head in his lap while he drove. Stopped at the gas station to get me kleenex and something to drink while I sobbed. Held me for hours while I cried, and kept crying.

Is it any wonder I fell in love with this man?

stolen moments. Valentine's Day. Why wasn't I asleep in bed with my husband the night of Valentine's Day? I have no idea. Driving. The drinking spot. Sliding in the icy gravel, his voice comforting me. Lying in the back of the truck with him. His hands over my body. His lips against mine as the world shattered. Being given the out, and not taking it. The sun rising in the windows behind him, his softening cock in my mouth.

Going home and allowing my husband to make love to me, wondering at the irony of it all. Getting farther and farther from being able to pretend my marriage was working. Seeing the coincidence of Ranger and Talitha (Fig's and my D&D characters) falling in love. I should have paid attention when they didn't work out. *bitter smile*

*sigh*

logomancer and blckwngdorcl have a hard time with Fig. They see the results of my relationship with him. They see the scars, the pain. The sometimes still-raw newness of it. It colors everything else I say about him. I can't show them the other things, the good times. They are blind to it. Both so bound to protecting me, wanting the best for me, that they can't see past the hurt he caused me. The hurt I caused myself.

I remember something I wrote once, after a about a year ago where I gathered my energy from people who were holding it:

I went to Fig. Strangely enough, he fought me. Not physically, of course, but was very stubborn about giving it up. I could feel myself being confused, and angry (of course, I didn't feel much of the anger... more like acknowledged it was there). I also felt a sense of vindication. So, I'm important to him after all. We played tug of war for a minute, acting out of our fears, until I realized I didn't really have to ask his permission. So, I took it. Gently, but I made the decision that his protests and barriers didn't matter, and I took it, anyway. It left a gaping hole in his gut, which he looked at with a sense of loss, sorrow, and betrayal. How could I? I merely smiled at him, and waved my hand over the hole, and pure energy filled it in. I'm pretty sure it was his own energy; I had merely redirected it where it needed to go. He looked down, with mixed emotions. Disbelief (both that I had taken it, and that I had so easily replaced it with something else), wonder, and something on the edge of anger, regret, sorrow - like a mixture of those that he was trying to dredge up, but couldn't quite manage, 'cause of the new energy making it difficult. I left while he was still assimilating that.

I'm not sure what to think about that. Obviously, he still has some of my energy, or I wouldn't be having this conversation with myself, now would I?

I remember getting back together with Leo just before I moved down here. It amazed me what I remembered when I was with him. Things I'd forgotten. Good things. Things I apparently hadn't let myself remember after the divorce. It distressed me that my memory was so one-sided. Perhaps that was what I had needed at the time, to let go. I don't know. But it seemed unfair to me that my memories of him were mostly all bad. Perhaps that was a balance, after the years of focusing only on the good. Whatever it was, I was glad to be able to regain many of those memories, to honor them. I don't regret the tattoo on my finger that represents him.

Nor do I resent the one on my neck that represents Fig. Although it saddens me each time I become aware of it. Fig, really, no longer exists. He's become Dean now, and perhaps that's for the best, for him. Still, no one doubts that she's going to hurt him very badly one day.

Sometimes I wonder about that day. Will he remember me then? Will he remember all his friends who warned him? Will it matter?

I fantasize about him showing up on my doorstep, unannounced, but never really unexpected. Opening the door and seeing him there. Knowing without being told what's happened. Letting him in, calling Whimsy and Smithers over to see him. Hoping that blckwngdorcl will understand the profundity of this moment for me, and wait patiently in the shadows, without killing him.

I picture myself being compassionate and wise. Listening to him, and being able to comfort him, but standing firm in my choice. I love blckwngdorcl. He is the One. I don't want what Fig and I had. I pine now, as I pined back then, for what we didn't have, that fraction more that would have made us fully a couple, not just very good friends who happened to live together, do just about everything together, and, oh yeah, have sex on a regular basis. I've stopped slicing hairs on the nature of it, and whether it should be called sex or not. ("I suppose it's only in my own twisted mind that I'm still a virgin. I mean, we've fucked.")

But do I really pine for it? Think about it, Quib. If things had gone as you wished.

No. *sigh* Not really.

But some days.......

*long pause*

Fig and I were too caught up in our respective roles to ever have grown the way I have here. I was trying so hard to not fall back into my role of the controlling socialite wife that I never spoke up for myself on anything, I let him run slipshod all over me. Not that he was overbearing or anything. But I went so far out of my way to keep a balance of sorts that I created a very unbalanced situation. And he took advantage. Who can blame him? Perhaps I should, but I'm not at that point. We were both trying so hard to protect ourselves and each other. We both saw right through each other. Always. But that was scary. Scary to be so exposed to another. So, we both held our peace. Don't tell my secrets, and I won't tell yours. Not simple stuff like me sucking his dick damn near every night. Harder stuff. His childhood, and the fights with his brother. His father. His mother. His big talk that did nothing to hide his fear from me. And I played along, of course, so he wouldn't let on that he saw clearly my own pain. Tit for tat.

What a lovely place to hide.

I hated Jessica just as much for taking Fig away from me as I did for knowing that she was going to hurt him someday. I'd spent a great deal of effort protecting him. Of course he had to escape from that. I understand that, even as I rage against it.

I remember wanting to fight him. To go out into the backyard, in the dark, with the fence to hide our movements, and just beat the shit out of each other. I told him so. Not in so many words, of course. And, of course, he would have none of it. He'd sooner fight his brothers than me. I wish I could have. Would have been very cathartic.

Rage Rage Rage

I know it's there. I see it out of the corner of my mind's eye, taunting me in the shadows. Rich, and red, like blood. Powerful and savage and beautiful.

Mine.

Anybody got a knife?