regression.

there are little scratches all over my body from where the hay i helped my mother load into her truck this morning struggled against my weakling limbs. they sting. it looks instead as if i was involved in a power struggle with a small animal.

in a sense, i am.

they are forecasting a perfectly eighty-degree-partly-sunny day for saturday. i don't want that to happen. the thunderstorms that they said would arrive on thursday should stick around. make themselves at home. kick off their shoes and rest, relieve themselves of their burden. in turn, would it relieve me of mine, or just remind me that i have one, small as it is?

the small animal is gently kneading at my insides, and if i don't cry at least once in the next four days, it'll put up quite the scrabble until it claws and shreds and tears its way up through my ribcage and up my throat and rips my face open. that'd be sure to bring a few tears, no?

i'm not even the one who suffers the most from this memory. but since the twenty-ninth i've been politely disregarding the subtle reawakening of familiar emotions; memories of a twelve-day block that i shouldn't remember with such disdain. i'm stronger than that. indians don't cry. irish don't cry. do croatians cry? i don't know how tough they are; but the scottish and germans are made of tougher stuff than that. my mother deals with this kind of stuff through strained vocal deliveries and the occasional break in a sentence, but mostly through taut reactions towards others. my father cries more than my mother, i think. i think i inherited most of my looks from my mother, but most of my character traits from my father. i'm a good mixture, and i'm digressing.

i digress, and then regress back into that familiar state i was in a year ago. from anyone else's standpoint, especially of those who were more closely tied than myself, i seem like someone who enjoys playing the role of a victim, or of a tragic romantic. and i know i should be stronger than that, and this entire year, for the most part, i have been. but it's a hell of a lot easier to quell the violent nature of the small beast on the far side, the colder side, of the year than it is now.

there is someone who wants to rebuild a bridge. i'll have my answer for you later, you understand. i appreciate the olive branch, but i'll place it on the ground for now. right now i'm busy unearthing the proverbial grave i dug for myself last year. amazing how easily the soil, soil gives way. when i've climbed back out, and i shall--no matter how much it rains, it won't let me drown there--we'll go about this business. possibly even the next day, if i see you at the event. but you, of all people, understand--this is a difficult time for me. when i climb back out, i'll be holding my own branch, and i'll only place it on the ground so i can have two hands to hold the shovel as i, again, fill this grave, this pockmark on my landscape--i want to say for good, but we all know how true my statements of those kind are.

give me rain, God. give me time to howl, to let this mouth yawn wide and let loose this...whatever being it is...let me yell, let me cry. and then let me quiet myself, and be at some semblance of peace.

i will leave so much behind...never this, always there, but most of the shattered pieces of it i will smother in the ground.

whew. breathe, and, okay. i go.

-d