axe & oak

The more I write, the more it makes sense. I am trying to make sense of it all. I am trying to have that power again. The hardest thing I have ever done was not enduring all that pain.

You’re in quite a daze a lot of the time and just want to make it through one more day without a colossal fight. Stepping on eggshells becomes second nature. The hardest part was finally calling police. You realise at some point that this is a bit bigger than you can handle, and someone else is going to have to step in and take the reigns before you drive yourself into a brick wall. You realise this all just has to stop, now, or else it’ll destroy you. You are finally at rock bottom and you’ve lost enough pride to realise any further damage would be irreparable.

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When I called the police I was desperate. I wanted it all to end. I wanted me to end. I wanted the ground to swallow me whole forever and ever. I was expecting for it all to explode on me, because I felt like I had done something wrong. Instead the police quietly walked inside, I sat down and I gave a statement for close to an hour and was overcome with a heavy calm, somehow. I stripped off my clothes in my lounge room and a female officer took photos of my pain. My chest, my stomach, my back, my thighs, my throat. I lent over the stove with the senior officer and we took a few mouthfuls of the the dinner that had gone cold in the crock pot. I methodically, unconsciously told him the recipe and how I had made it from start to finish. He kept asking me distracting questions. Then it was time to leave. They had found an officer who could drive me home at 2am. He didn’t look at me when the police walked him out the door, handcuffed. I looked at him. I stared a big hole through the back of his head as they escorted him out the door, thinking that I would never see him again but alas he was there in court the next day. 

I sat there, alone, with my cat in my lap, back up against the wall as they questioned him in another room, as they emptied out the house of all evidence. I regretted it immediately. I had never felt such guilt. It was in the very pit of my stomach and I wondered a few times, what could I do now to make this go away? I knew then I’d have to deal with this for a long time to come. I would have preferred slipping out the back door on a quieter night without putting up a fight and changing my number and address. I don’t have regrets now but in the days following I felt I had betrayed my dearest one. I’m forever learning the difference in right and wrong.

Dad and I drove the 4 hour round trip to pick the cat up from my old house. I still struggle not to call it home, because it was not long ago that I woke up there every morning. The bedroom and garage windows heavily covered with 3 sets of curtains so no one could see in, which now seems like a flagrant metaphor that blew right over my head. The stained grey carpet underfoot, and the pale blue paint circa 1985 on every door and cupboard. This marked the end of a dissonant chapter, and for that I am thankful.

We drove in the rain listening to PBS and Dad chewed gum the whole time. After sensing the hurt and frustration coming from him after 25 minutes of silence, I broached the topic of the upcoming election. We didn’t talk about the cat, we didn’t talk about my relationship, we didn’t talk about the injustice of it all. I didn’t cry and he didn’t even ask me “What have you learnt from this?” as fathers are wont to do.

I went over the whole thing in my head, from start to end. How we met, how I pursued him so heavily, how he impressed my family with his charm, and how he concerned my friends with his history. Sailing the bay and hiking over two continents. Picking a boot load of slippery jacks from the outskirts of a forest two hours away and the disappointment of dinner having gone cold on the bench after an hour long row. I thought about it from start to end but mostly just the end. I couldn’t remember how most movies end, but I will tell this story for a long time to come. The ending will be the integral part.

It feels like spring, and that seems to be the most important thing to me right now. It’s something tangible that I can hold onto that I know won’t change for a definitive period of time. Also, it leads to summer. He was always a winter person. I sit with the sun on my face, and try not to become the grief that is hanging above my head.

friday nights are my favourite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i’m going to bed cya

the neighbours came over at 7pm to ask us to turn the (already quite soft) music down

now i am listening to gospel really loudly i wonder if they will ask me to turn it down
I AM PRAYING
DON’T INTERRUPT 

strangeness that never leaves
comfort zone that comes on slowly
belly ache
mid afternoon panic attack

an eon blinked

this blog is tender this blog is banal this blog is mind numbing this blog is a waste of space this blog is solace this blog is cicadas whirring outside this blog is my house mate laughing from the other end of the house this blog is quiet this blog is restless this blog is POINTLESS

don’t you move, he said, just relax.
i tried but mozzies were rampant and the twilight was unnervingly peaceful and i was sat by the window outside under his close supervision. i could feel him looking at me through the glass through the steam rising off the pots and pans fogging up the windows. 

also i just sent someone a sext and they replied with:

do you like movies

there was a soft southerly blowing when i arrive. i cracked a beer and sat on the rock wall contemplating the ocean and the sudden calm that washed over me with it. there was a storm out west and it was headed this way a big grey blanket connecting the sky and the sea and the words kept flowing the water was darker, algae pushing in and i felt alone at peace despite the city looming in the visible distance and the people walking ashore i wished for the cloud cover to linger a little longer and i spent a day watching a sunken boat disappear and reappear with the moving tide and i was not restless