8-31

I am acting, playing a part.

I smile and pull drinks, detached. She's someone else, she's the character in a movie. Inside the cold wall my mind is whirring on thoughts miles away. Outside she smiles, makes a joke now and then. I like her, she is fun and friendly. She's tired. She's put in 13 hours to make up for past mistakes. She's working hard to better herself. She has a vision and she plows toward it.

Her face changes and I adjust it, keeping it lightly smiling, a tweak here and there to hide the exhaustion and worry. She's moving fast and she likes to be moving. This is good for her.

Afterward, when things are quiet, the walls melt down and I reach out. We walk in the dark, using light from the bright half-moon to navigate a well-traversed path we could walk with our eyes closed but moonlight is more pleasant.

She's settling back into me, merging parts. I am tired, and when I am tired I feel how sad I am. I pause and try to cry, but nothing comes. It's locked inside me without alcohol, or someone else's pain to bring mine to the surface. I become aware of being ridiculous, and shake myself free of the shroud of self-pity I'm pulling around me. I do not have to be sad. It's not a sentence.

The dog knows the path better than I, and knows we will be turning soon. She looks over her shoulder, nervously, awaiting my signal, moves forward, looks again. I love the way she orbits around me, autonomous but connected. It is comforting to my weary jealous heart to know she will be there, even in the dark. We will always be an entity. I am more melded with her mind than my own, sometimes.

My future is opening up, and good men are waiting for me, patient and calm, hoping time will change my mind. They stand back, polite, respectful but I cling so tightly to myself, will there ever be room for them?

Do I want to make room? when I am whole with myself and all my pieces, and this animal before me whose soul is such a part of my own?

I never wanted to make room, before him.

I'm becoming myself again, and I like traversing the path in the dark alone, with the silent connection to the animal who moves in conjunction with currents around my body. I like the quiet. I like the peace and the solitude. I like the way trees make secret shapes in the dark and some of them frighten me.

I force myself to stop and confront them so I can grow and quit making monsters of shadows.

I don't think there's room, when I have so many pieces of myself to gather up.