My lover's words....
A few simple words. A request...
...the ill-treated child within my
being read coercion.
My body continued but my mind coiled
around the words and locked down until my body could no longer
continue—until I couldn't speak or move.
I recoiled, escaped.
Trapped in a mental assault, with the
bathroom light on, I latched onto the towels, hoping they'd provide
some tenderness. When none came, and the voices grew louder, an icy
rigidity seized my body. My eyes clamped open.
Each thought laid itself like a brick,
stacking layer over layer over layer, sealing me out. The bricks rose
higher and higher. Seconds became years. My mind sentenced me to an
interminable, impenetrable misery of the wall. I longed for death,
some end to it.
I removed myself to the couch and laid
out an isolation shroud. I sank down, leaden and listless. Resigned.
Some filament of something began to grow
through a tiny crack in the wall, too small to notice at first—a
memory, the scent of sap, grounding, bare feet on the soil.
Wall construction continued.
Resignation turned to a panic-stricken search for a door, some
passageway through. My eyes darted back forth until they came upon a
tiny root curling itself through, and stopped.
I reached out and touched its delicate,
silken hairs.
“Go outside,” it whispered.
An answer: I could make my way through
the wall, from the outside in, calling on the Earth. Though, at the
time I didn't recognize how I'd get through in this way, the
message was clear: go outside.
I pried myself off of the couch and
willed myself back into the bedroom.
Clothes... protection from the cold.
His voice asked after me through the
wall, from miles away. I could not answer.
Clothes, protection. Rigid mind and
fingers fumbled through the dark to find them. My mind began to
thicken the wall with new layers—but I could not forget the root
and its message: go outside.
Clumsy hands grabbed his coat and heavy
feet carried me down the stairs. As the cool air hit my face, tears
came. Water for the root.
Wall construction hurtled on at a
frenzied pace. My mind calling me to perform some drastic,
self-destructive act—continuing to invite death, violence to dash out my thoughts.
But my feet were sure by now and
carried me down the path, over fallen branches and to a cold, dew-soaked,
mossy tree trunk. I reached out a hand and leaned in. Sobs leapt from
my chest.
The salty water soaked the root. It
began to stretch itself down to the Earth, upwards, sideways.
Braiding and entwining itself. Taking form. Taking up the substance
of the wall into itself. It was becoming an archway and light began
to seep through.
I walked out from the forest and back
to the path. I stepped out of my shoes and onto the roots of a giant
read cedar. Here was all the tenderness I needed: the girth of its
solid trunk, the sweet smells of its bark, the damp Earth. An
ancestor to hold me, to stand with.
-->
The light flooded through the wall's
rooted archway and into my body. The thoughts subsided. I could
remember tenderness: his, my own, and the world's. I could go back
with an opening in my heart.
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