8-15

Calmer. I reach out to the world and touch it when I need. I use my nails and the tips of my fingers, testing the heat, scared to burn.

My friends sit patiently, quiet, as like a wild dog, I creep in and out, ridge up, teeth bared, wanting on some deep level to trust. They’re not used to seeing me like this and it worries them, but they stay still. They cross their legs and hold their hands out, and let me weave around them in suspicion as I growl and whine hungrily.

My cave is overrun, a disastrous explosion of distractions. The disorganization irritates and thrills me. The potential excites, then overwhelms. I have littered my retreat with the future. Projects cover everything, tools and concepts and sketches and broken-up pieces of books and colored rocks from below the surface of Lake Superior, twisted wires and piles of fur and lace and yarn, hot pens to burn wood and leather and little pleasant bottles of paint, jars of wood stain with wet ridges adhering stickily to their lids. 

I’ve nested, buried myself in.

When my mind begins to spin from one extreme to another, there is always something for my fingers to do. Soft and smooth things to touch, coolness and warmth. The physicality grounds me.

I wonder if you’ll come back. I need answers you won’t give me, so I turn to the cards. I don’t like what they say. 

Nothing’s ever definitive. Don’t they--don’t you?--know by now that I need definitive? If you leave the ends open, I will toy with them until they fray and snap. It’s a trap for you, answers. How can you give me something firm when your foot is always in the door. How can I relax when the wind blows at me through the crack.

You used to watch me. I noticed. I thought it was strange, at first, and then touching, how you turned me over like a puzzle in your head. Had anyone tried to understand me so deeply before? When your arms were tight, and your eyes turned toward me, I felt secure.

It was odd to me, then, when you squinted and puzzled and studied, how you refused to listen when I told you what I needed.

This is how I feel. This is what worries me. This is what I need.

I put it in my hand and gave it to you, and you discarded it. 

Maybe you think that was a trap, too. Too simple. Maybe my words were too sharp. Maybe you heard me saying, you have failed, rather than, I need your help.

I needed you to reassure and hand me back finality. I want you. I love you. I am listening.

I don’t know that it can be done anymore. I tried every way I knew to give those things to you. When the world rocked under my feet I needed you to steady me.

You would rather pull away and blame my balance.

I pace my cave. I have regressed. I am the wild, frantic child again. I am a creature of isolation and darkness and dirt.

I’m in there, waiting. I sit quietly, legs crossed, until the animal I have become stops pacing and settles.