Sometimes I wake up not knowing where I am, or who I am. This morning was just like that. Not an out of body experience but the kind of shady-eyed, heart-racing, full-bladder wakeup where you only have one thing on your mind. & once you’ve visited the toilet you look in the mirror as the cold water runs over your hands & you wonder who the hell you are looking at.
“Is that me? Are those my mascara stains?”
YES.
Waking up this week could take forever.
Feels like my body is rejecting me. My brain & heart are in different places & I swear I can feel the spring run through my blood redesigning my DNA. It is never satisfied. Bring back the winter. I approve of the rain & the cold. The long sleeves & the late mornings. The blue dawn & the days I forget my umbrella & refuse to run.
By the end of this week spring will have taken full hold of September & there will be beauty everywhere. Greens, pinks, blues – flowers & faces. I can’t help but let it absorb me but I don’t really approve.
I am not as cruel as you think I am, or as angry.
He works hard & the harder he works, the more often I am alone. The harder he works the more I appreciate him, but the harder he works the less I see of him to appreciate.
It is almost 3pm & the day has been swallowed – I cannot remember what I have done other than write & think & drink cranberry juice. My bladder is screaming at me, I have to go & each time I lose my train of thought & every time I see that girl in the mirror again. I do not know who she is but I would like to peel her face off & build a new one. She is not who I wanted her to be & I cannot figure out how to map my way to who she should have been.
Ashes ©Jan Marie 1986
Violet Ashes 