Reading myself

peace

So today I spent WAYY TOO MUCH time looking for myself. I wanted to read someone that's like me, you know? I wanted that tingly/sizzly feeling I get when someone hits it right.on.the.head, they feel you, know what you're sayin', have written your day onto the paper.

Most days I can get pretty close. Or at least distracted. Not today.
Boo.

I want to read myself, but I haven't been myself. For so long I've been restrained. Here and in real life.

Days like this, when I'm reflective and full-up with unpretty feelings, days like this I understand why sometimes even my family doesn't like me that much. I don't even like myself. I'm manipulative, lustful, self-pitying, whiny, mean (really mean), incredibly selfish. Today, as much as I WANT to focus on other people, on the beauty of the world, on anything but myself and my horribleness, it's a real task.

I've been holding this inside for so long. The last time I remember not having to fight this feeling in it's spiraling comings and goings was, oh, second grade or so. Can you imagine? Not wanting other people to come in contact with the poisonous parts of me... I've done what I shouldn't and held it in and poisoned myself. All the while hating myself for not being stronger when it bubbles to the surface, for letting it splash onto other people. This is when the slow tears leak. This is when I get scared because I hurt so damned badly and it's not a hurt I can point to, indent my skin with my index and say "Right HERE. THIS IS WHERE IT'S BAD. KISS IT ALL BETTER, NOW." It's a pain that's very privately infernally real, worse now than ever. These are the days when the talismanic prayer never leaves my mind 'cause I think I'm going down, down, down in a storm of lonliness and cold: audhu billahi min ashaitan irrajim. audu billahi min ashaitan irrajim. audhubillahiminashaitanirrajim. I am the child running to hide, clinging in the soft, strong ruchs of His garment, behind The Only One who can possibly save me. If. Possibly. It follows me even in the folds. It circles everywhere in wait.

I just get so scared to let God out of my sight. Are you kidding? That FEARPAIN has already half eaten me alive.

What am I Supposed to do with poison? It seems like examining this state of being is when it is hardest to really pray. It becomes going through the motions, feeling the iciest deepest indigo despair that I'm not loveable, that no one not even I can try, that I'm not even worthy of notice by the One above. I'm deafened, colors blur and blend and mute themselves, my awareness retreats in a last ditch effort to keep "me" for the time when I can come out and feel better days. Tap me on the shoulder, let the phone ring, and my head swings to the side, my eyes in outer space. I'm zoned from the pain and the unbeareable dimness of the Light. Sister asks, "Have you been drinking?" I would, had it a possibility of helping. That door, too, is closed.

al final, here it is, i can read myself. I hope with everything left in me to take nothing from this, from these days, from feeling poisoned and terrified and drunk, gasping for some air. Nothing but the "me" sheltered by some preserving instinct. I don't need a souvenir. The memories are stained in. For all who will look to see and none to understand.

This is the trembling fear after which no one on this earth can tell me Satan is not a reality. These are the days that make me so grateful there is a God.