sleeping in salt-tears

It really is darkest before dawn.

Right about now.


I cannot be sure of the reasons: I am so insomnia-bound perhaps, that I feel terribly low. Maybe the Febs ingested earlier, hours after my pre-midnight beer. Maybe Nancy Wilson on my iTunes, because mellow soul, I thought, would help me sleep-


Suddenly 'Face It Girl, It's Over' makes me tear unknowingly, reminded suddenly of the withdrawal of love in a vacuum I once existed in, knowing that he humoured me with lies and silences once, just as he continues to spew hatred disguised in mock professionalism. Suddenly I realised that the letters and poems I wrote only once over, given to him, burned in that black hole that is no longer. If I die, I hope he gets moved to scour my blog and his revered drawer, to publish me like an amateur poet who wrote feverishly in her everyday insane moments.


Even 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You', the way she sings it for me, I suddenly recall that a love in this brand of romanticism, had only existed for me once and only once: like a life, once conceived, can never replaced even by many others you love bitterly.


'Alfie', deeply serenading lyrics with a lullaby built tune to it, makes me contemplate and weep simultaneously.


'Don't Go to Strangers', as she sings makes me realise only a deeply lonely woman would sing that, and I know I have once been that. 'But when you need more than company, don't go to strangers, come home to me, come home, to me.'


Old wineskin I am - if catastrophe were to strike me in the mildest, I would be less than leaping to overcome. I look at myself, and realise that I am old, and maybe it is harder to be strong now.


Someone I love, if he were to walk away because he was angry, now hacks me with a multiple-bladed axe. In the past, I would tell myself: fight for your man, win him over and back to you. But now, if he walked away even in a brief moment of anger, I can never muster up that kind of resolve to act bravely anymore. I have used it all up on a past love. Just like I have used up my love poetry, my rapturous collection of written shared secrets. Just like that, dried out and no more for the next one I love intensely more!


I have a beautiful friendship that has for some no reason reared itself enemy-like. I recall times when I was in primary school and I had a silly best friend who accused me of things constantly. Yes, a bully of a person. She would accuse me of taking her red coloured pencil without returning, when I did return her, she just didn't notice that I did. She would slap me in front of the others at our Brownies meeting - and for nothing. I was so hurt by her that we would publicly quarrel in class and - the boys were on my side, by the way - but there and then, I felt what it was like to have a friend turn against me in order to crush my self-worth.


And today I live with the same things, only in a different race and breed. I am of no worth whatsoever to him and never will be no matter how many times he convinces himself with his words directed to me. I want to give up and walk away but I cannot because I am soul-bound to my work. I tear at that, for no reason.


If you read this, don't say anything to me. Just like how I wrote my diary when I was, fifteen or sixteen, and let H read it once because I wanted to share me with him - he only had one comment thereafter: you are sick. Nothing else, it is only polite.