SHOPPING FOR LOVE - SAME GAMES, DIFFERENT NAMES

It had become habit, this preparation for presentation at the local bars, hoping someone would notice, someone would find her interesting, she might find someone who would love her so she could stop playing this brutal game.

Her emotions were at odds with the idea of replaying the same desperate role of hard to get, yet easily taking the bait and becoming someone’s sexual conquest.

Drinks to help loosen her up enough so that she would agree to play, then back to someone’s bedroom to begin the dance; a passionate kiss filled with the messages of desire, seductively undressing and lying across the bed, breathing as if the deed were done, yet it was only the beginning.

After a lengthy seduction, with her talents honed to perfection, he would finally enter her as she moans with delight. No one needed to know it was all pretense, she felt nothing. She would writhe in a lustful explosion of intense release and continue until he filled her with a token of appreciation, a hard thrust or two, a sudden gasping for air and he would collapse on top of her.

Silence.

He would eventually get up and walk to the bathroom to relieve himself and, as he makes his way to the kitchen, he would ask her if she’d like another drink. She always accepted, not to loosen her up, but to enter a mental fog before reality sets in and she began to understand what it’s all about, the shame, the loss of self, amidst the painful rejection she always knew would follow.

He’d put his clothes back on, mumbling some excuse for having to leave and apologizing, with a promise to call her.

She never gave them her phone number and they always left with pieces of her in their pockets – trophies to show off to their friends as they compare conquests. Then, as if they suddenly turned into pieces of debris, those pieces were tossed carelessly to the ground. Those pieces of her will never be found.

She lay naked between the sheets, feeling that unwelcomed residue, wet beneath her. She would eventually rise to go to the bathroom and notice the toilet has become a swill of toilet water and urine. They didn’t have the good sense to flush after they relieved themselves.

The cum on the sheets, that also ended up running down her leg, along with a bowl of urine water, were her only trophies. This is all she had won after perfecting her makeup and hair, picking out an outfit to compliment her curves, and spending most of her night accepting the drinks one lucky man would offer.

One night.

The losses were adding up.

She always cleaned herself up and returned to her bed, avoiding the wet spot on the other side and making a note to change the sheets tomorrow. She would change them and make up her bed as she makes up herself, and the whole evening would play itself out again, same game, different name.

Sure, her name would be forgotten as quickly as she would forget his, but she would carry the memory of all those shameful acts like dead flowers in a vase. Someday, she will take that vase and throw it against the door as the last one leaves.

The next night would be no different than the countless nights that came before. She was growing weary.

No more crying over spilled “milk”, no more tears of self-pity, no more pain from the emotionally tattered mind that keeps reminding her… one night.

Only one.

Unable to sleep and find peace in her dreams, she filled her glass with cheap bourbon and shook several pills into her hand, thinking this would help her sleep… no more anguish, no more self-loathing, no more fairy-tales with a happily ever after…

She returned to the bathroom to remove her masked existence, but before she does she takes all the pills at once into her mouth and washes them down with the bourbon.

She was aware that there is an awful stench in this place but could not find the source.

Another drink and she looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, thinking about what a putrid old corpse she had become. Sure, she could still make herself look fetching enough and she would have no trouble finding someone to “escort” her home and into her bed.

Slowly, she began removing the makeup and brushed out her hair. The reflection never matched her mental vision of what she looked like. Perhaps, she isn’t anything like she imagined herself to be. Maybe it’s all make-believe and she makes them believe. Hell, she even believed it.

She observed herself more closely in the mirror, “Who would ever fall in love with this?”

She stumbled over to the bed, sat on the side until she could no longer balance, finished off the glass of bourbon and laid down.

Two days later, a friend came by to check on her. She hadn’t been at the bar in as many days and that was unusual.

Her friend turned the doorknob and the door opened easily, it had never been locked. On the floor was broken glass from what seemed to be an empty vase. There were no water-marks and no dead flowers, just an empty vase shattered on the floor, just inside the door.

The odor was rank and as she approached the bedroom, calling out her friend’s name, she caught a glimpse of her, frozen on the bed.

The police were called and collected her friend’s remains. The thought crossed her mind...

                               What remains?

It would be difficult, but she had to go out and have a drink. She simply could not be alone on this night. She did her makeup and hair to perfection and found an outfit that complimented her curves. Once she had finished primping, she drove to their favorite bar and she sat down at the farthest end and ordered her usual drink.

A gentleman leaning on the other side of the bar took note and lifted his drink in a faux toast… to what?

Her next drink was on him. And the next drink was delivered by the man himself. She told him about her friend and he gave a semi-sincere and supportive response.

The bar was closing, he offered to escort her back to her apartment.

Different names,

                             same games.

As I fade away, you have already forgotten my name.

I mattered yesterday, but I had no idea this was a game.

We played to win or lose and I never knew the rules.

When do I begin to choose and what happens to fools?

I never choose to play, yet it always ends the same.

There is no more to say, so I will collect my shame

and add it to my taboos, feeling so miniscule.

I paid my dues, still… life is so intensely cruel?

For your rejection, I paid for your right to proclaim

having won the prey. I have no dignity to reclaim.

I didn’t expect this abuse, nor was I prepared for a mental duel.

My fate is a poor excuse; I was the kindling - you were the fuel.

M TERESA CLAYTON

DEAR SOUL

I hear the rumblings, see the written words of repentant souls, looking for a way to begin again, knowing that will never be. So, they search for salvation in confessionals, in letters they write in the night, when sleep cannot be found, nor the peace of mind they so desperately need. 

This blog has some rather large and seemingly difficult words to express their unanswered prayers, supplications, compromises… no compromises in life, once a choice is made. The words were carefully chosen so as to encompass the entirety of the spectrum of the chaos that lies before us, of own making, victims of self-destruction, laid bare, waiting for judgments that may or may not come.

Don't allow the language to frighten you. These are the precise words that describe our existence as we have penned it. Open up the on-line dictionary and learn the meaning - this is what we are, this is what we do. 

I understand your frustrations, your inability to let go of your iniquities, your compulsions to do that which serves you – knowing that you will pay the greater price in the end. Why? What is it really about?

I’ve written a letter for my own self-serving, narcissistic, arrogant choices, pleading with my soul to just go, break free, so that I can no longer contaminate its purity in purpose. I cannot hear its good intentions, its better advice – and I suppose, if I could, I’d still choose this path. How do I stop being ME?

HOW DO YOU STOP BEING … YOU?

Dear Soul,

I fear I have been negligent in my duties to keep you from these desecrations… in such wickedness, immorality and perversions, that I have loosened the elements of repudiations, and the capriciousness, internality and aversions – the resonance, these manifestations!

There may not be due diligence for all these cruelties I reap from these deviations.

It is a sickness, this abnormality, and the diversions that confuse one’s sense of reparations for deviousness in sentimentality and subversions – the innocence lost in mannerist violations!

I am not worthy of your devotions, these complicated emotions that pull me to and fro. I can no longer choose which way to go. I cannot hear your counsel, your advice; I denounce all that you devise.

Ready to separate before it’s too late, let go of formality, surrender my mortality. Leave this earthly plane, this devised reality and go insane; a revised virtuality, a disguised virtuosity, where no one is to blame.

Honestly, aren’t you and I the same?

Sincerely yours,

Another soul without a name,

                 

           (simply playing the game.) 

ME AND A TREE - FAILING AND FALLING INTO PIECES

Awake and unaware. Medications have taken over my ability to be aware. I will muddle through another evening that may or may not continue into the wee hours’ pre-sunrise.

I remember today. I remember yesterday. Beyond that, I cannot remember a thing without creating a pounding headache in my obsessive need to know. Don’t ask me to remember what I ate yesterday or the day before. Chances are, I don’t remember.

I do remember sitting beneath the canopy of a tree that had stood for 20+ years, feeding the sparrows and jays, feeling the breeze that kissed my cheeks and the day was splendid. The temperature was normal for this time of the year, with low humidity. It made for a clear blue sky with the occasional puffy cloud, and the feeling of rightness. The coffee was fresh and the added hazelnut creamer made it a treat. The warmth of the liquid settled on my tongue with a sweet and honey-like flavor before running down my throat. Some things are worth the awareness. Some things are worth remembering.

Yesterday, I watched them dismantle that beautiful tree branch by branch as I stood in the doorway crying for her loss. She stood up to major winds that came with these summer storms and she never complained, until recently. You see, she was splitting in two through her trunk and it was becoming larger by the day. We had to take her down.

I was aware of every cut they made and how noble she seemed, standing there with such dignity and pride. I fell away into a fog of despair and helplessness, knowing this was the right thing to do but wanted her to remain a little longer. I will miss her.

It looks barren where she once extended her presence over the decking and outward over a section of the ground below. Now, there is an emptiness inside of me that is equal to the emptiness where she once stood.

Today, my joy was difficult to find. Grandchildren filled the rooms and kept me smiling. How blessed I am for my grandchildren. However, the sun was loud and angry – the air was humid and hot where once it could not reach me. Inside my home, air-conditioner and fans spinning, I was still overcome by that overbearing heat and humidity. Muscles ached and I became exhausted after a small bit of work indoors. My head was spinning and I was irritable and unsteady. How does a person go from pure joy to such sadness and then into physical chaos?

The children were picked up and I slept for several hours in a blackened room with the fan humming as it attempted to mock the breezes, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing will ever be the same again.

My body hurts. It comes and goes. Sometimes with the weather changes, sometimes with the stress… in this case I believe I am having a moment of empathy for her, out there lying on her side and pieces cut for future fires. I managed to talk them into cutting wheels from the larger branches and trunk so I can sand them smooth, paint memories upon them, glaze them and then share them or sell them. I will keep quite a few of them for myself. 

No one understands my depression and melancholy. I’ve lost my beloved friend. The loss is almost too much to bear and the consequence of losing her blessed shade upon the back of our house is a stark and cruel reminder.

I can hear sirens in the distance. Perhaps they are on their way to save a soul or to save memories contained within the walls of burning home. Sirens are a foreboding sound. Nothing will be the same.

That’s it! A soul has been taken from me and I am the burning house trying to salvage the memories contained within the walls of my mind. The heat of the day was the fire that burned but there were no sirens and no one was aware that there was a loss out there and a bigger loss inside of me. 

I wonder. Does anyone else feel such love for a tree that I had for her? Do others feel the love returned to them emanating from within her bark? Do other people mourn the loss of trees as they would mourn the loss of a loved one? I wonder how long it will hurt, this feeling inside of me, and when will I be able to let go of the memories?

It’s odd how experiences such as these can affect us so profoundly. Yet, they do and we have no coping skills for these types of losses. Silly, that is what they would think of me if I were to tell them just how deep each cut was felt inside of me. Then, to see that she stood strong against such heavy winds with less than three inches of good wood encircling her trunk while the center was nothing but sawdust. I loved her even more for standing strong despite her disease and that weakness within that she must have felt. I am a shell of a woman standing strong against what life throws at me and I will not allow my disease nor my hollowed interior weaken me and allow me to fall. 

nb

She and I had a lot in common. No wonder I could empath her so well and I believe she could empath me. I will go on until there is no more of me to continue. I will be aware in the moment but I may have some difficulty in remembering. Memories are for those who no longer live a life, they sustain themselves reminiscing and reliving moments like this. I am still alive and all my capacities are working fine. Perhaps I don’t remember the details but I can certainly continue to appreciate each moment as it comes and retain what I need then dispose of the rest. 

What did you have for lunch last week on Wednesday? And, what kept you awake last Sunday night?

What is keeping you awake now? What thoughts, random as they seem, are keeping you company?

M TERESA CLAYTON

INSIDE OF BLACK

All that I have...                                     

                                 is all that I lack.

              I have given my all...                              

                               never calling it back.       

The day leaves me blind,                                      

                                             leaves me vacant,                

                         leaves me vulnerable                        

                                            to the lies.

In the light                                                     

                      we seek and find,                    

            like a vagrant...                                     

                                        a useless aspirant,

who simply lives long enough,                            

                          
                               then 

                                 finally dies.
              

Who do we blame for the poor                     

                                                              decisions?         

     Who is responsible for our 
               

                                                       derision?       

             So much                                                       

                          contempt within these              

                                                                            divisions,

                      Did I really need all that                                                                                                                                                     supervision?    

I have borrowed nothing...                               

             I can never pay them back. 

I’ve chosen to remain                               

                     

                                      blind...                   

                                                            safe,         

            without accountability,                                   

                                                 inside of black.                  

M Teresa Clayton

THE ARRIVAL

I thought I had walked for days; for days, I walked and walked and there was nary a thought of where I was going, just that I was on my way. I had neither anticipation nor excitement. There was no expectation of what it would be like once I arrived at my destination. I had no idea where my destination was, there was no direction; no map of the way.

I was too young to know any different. I was too young to fear, I had no experience to tell me there was anything to be afraid of. I was too old to fear, I had plenty of experience to reassure me, there was nothing to be afraid of. Young... Old... what are these?

When did I transcend my youth and enter into the old? When did the old take hold of my ankles and drag me into the darkness of the aged? Or was I confusing old with aged, when instead, it was actually wisdom? Wisdom. When does one possess wisdom? How does one know she has wisdom? Where does she find this wisdom and how does she come to possess it?

I walked and I walked, and I thought, and I thought… of where I had traversed from and where I traverse to, and still I have no answers to tell, nothing to comfort my questioning mind, nothing to give me hope, nothing that reassures me that the path I am on is the one that will deliver me to my... destination. Destinations are not the same as destiny; we are not destined to arrive at one particular place at one particular time. But then, why do we call this place of our arrival our destination? Originally, the word destination meant the action of intending someone or something for a particular purpose.

Perhaps I've been walking and walking and there simply is no place to go, no one waiting for me to arrive, nothing to anticipate as I keep walking and walking...

Maybe this is my destiny, my purpose, my fate. I am destined to walk without knowing. Destined sounds so ominous and foreboding, as if I were doomed from the outset. Then I should stop this walking and stand still until I know what is expected and whether or not I am expected.

Is there expectation? And who expects me? Fate is preordained. Is this fate? My fate is not preordained or I would have no choice and no reason to do this or that; go here or go there. Whatever will be, will be... without any interference by me or anyone or anything else... it will just be. So, I may decide to sit down right here and think about this a bit longer. It will have no consequence either way if I do or do not. Fate.

If it is fate and fate is indeed predestined and unchangeable then fate will find its way to me wherever I am; whatever I do. I should not fear it or rejoice in its arrival. It simply will be what it is without any forethought or intention.

If I have a choice and my destiny is changeable depending on my choices, then how will I know when I have enough information to properly make this choice?

My destiny could turn for the better or it could turn for the worse and I would have no way of knowing until I have arrived. And, again, how will I know I have arrived?

If my destination is a purpose intended for me, who is intending it? Where do these intentions originate? And for what end? Does someone else have control of my purpose? Does someone else's intention define my purpose and wouldn't that also define me? What a thought to think, someone else's intention defining me!

Then who am I? Am I who someone else says I am with a purpose intended for me that is not of my own choosing? I suddenly feel... wiser. I am not young and I am not old. I am not expected and I don't know what to expect.

I was sure I had choices but now I'm not so sure and perhaps there is no such thing as certainty, though I certainly think I have been walking and walking for days and days, and nothing has changed, not even the scenery - what I see, I see again and again - it repeats, much like life.

Life repeats with nary a change except for names and faces and maybe forgotten places... I have counted the hours, the days, the months, the years and this I know for sure - I changed. I don't know who determined it, fated it, intended it or destined me to be all these hours, days, months and years... but I am not the same as I was a moment ago.

I think I have arrived.

M TERESA CLAYTON

CONSEQUENCE

The author has chosen a few of her works to read aloud. If you wish to read it to yourself, that will be fine. However, if you would like to read along as she speaks, click here.

Zdzisław Beksiński

She woke up in the room feeling small and disconnected. She thought that perhaps she had been swallowed by a life that had gone too long without feeding and in a delirious state of needing, no longer saw her as its source and ate her whole without understanding the consequences.

Consequence.

Waking up has its consequences.  She would have to face another cycle of existence within this suffocating vacuum, trying to breathe, trying to stay awake, trying to fall away, go unrecognized and be eaten alive and swallowed whole, inside the belly of what could have been yet always was.

She was small, insignificant – but once again, provided the basic sustenance that would keep this life alive… for one more day.

Perhaps one day she will wake up outside of the room, having consumed it along with the life she had, feeling larger than life, alive and vital. 

She would need to keep her strength up for the days and months ahead, incubating, nurturing and giving birth to a new life that no doubt will once again suckle at her breast until there was nothing left… then eaten alive and swallowed whole by the life she bore… her own creation consuming her.

The cycle completed again… she, the inspiration, gives birth to new life, is consumed by her own creation, dies and is reborn again, and again, and again.

Continuance.

M Teresa Clayton (c)

art by Zdzisław Beksiński

JILL D PONTO-MILLER

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