Beautiful Trauma

"We were on fire,
I slashed your tires.
It's like we burn so bright, we burn out."

I remember when we had first met.

Well, I remember the before times.

"Hi, I think you're my cyber crush," you had said in a Twitter DM.

My response?

"Thanks, buddy!"

"I made you chase me,
I wasn't that friendly.
My love, my drug, we're fucked up..."

And I did.

I made you chase me.

I had been on my own for so long at that point, my heart torn and wounded and in no place to trust. You persisted. You messaged me every day, eventually me giving in and giving you my number and you texted me every morning, every afternoon, every night.

"'Cause I've been on the run so long, they can't find me,
You're waking up to remember I'm pretty,
And when the chemicals leave my body,
Yeah, they're gonna find me in a hotel lobby 'cause, tough..."

I had heard that word before: tough. There is a blog about it somewhere here in the archives. Tough. I had gotten sick of being called tough; just as sick as I am of hearing the word "resilient" these days. I had been told I was tough - how blows rained off me and I kept carrying on.

"Times they keep comin',
All night laughin' and fuckin'.
Some days like I'm barely breathing,
After we were high and the love dope died, it was you..."

We always think we know what love is. We think we have felt it, known it, in all of the messed up, broken up moments in time we thought were healthy relationships, all of the days we spent trying to convince ourselves that it was what we were supposed to do and maybe, just maybe, we had to suck it up.

But no matter what came before, after we had met that day, face-to-face, in the arena in Paradise, you and your shy smile not even telling me your name; me getting home to see a Twitter DM that said, "I guess I could have probably introduced myself."

"The pill I keep taking,
The nightmare I wake in,
There's nothing, no nothing, nothing but you..."

And there hasn't been anything but you since.

I dragged you out for months after that. I went to Edmonton. We talked every day. You kept messaging me on the day of my first tattoo asking if I was alright, telling me I would be hooked and I would not be able to stop looking at it because that is how you had felt. 

You showed up at the airport at 4 am to pick me up.

Oh, and on the tattoo, you were right.

You always knew how I would feel because we had always, somehow, felt the same way in different stages of our lives even though we did not know the other existed.

"My perfect rock bottom,
My beautiful trauma,
My love, my love, my drug,
Oh.
My love, my love, my drug, we're fucked up."

How did this all become so fucked up?

We both laid it out, didn't we? We made sure there were no secrets. We let it pour out of us both the night we took that drive to Bay Bulls in your car and you said I scared you and I told you that you scared me too. Neither of us thought we had wanted it until it was laid at our feet.

"You punched a hole in the wall and I framed it,
I wish I could feel things like you..."

You were always the one who laid your feelings out, me a locked down safe draped in concrete that you chipped away at and taught me it was okay to talk and let it out. Talk we did. There was nothing we could not talk about and I learned what was a healthy relationship, open lines of communication, and always going to bed in each other's arms.

Now:

"Everyone's chasing that holy feeling,
And if we don't stay lit, we'll blow out.
Blow out."

Holy.

I have never been religious, nor were you. But we both had family factions that were and we were respectful.

Now I see and feel things from holy people that make me question their foundations, how they can be so cruel while also pledging their allegiance to a book that says to love one another despite what may come.

Lying and weaponizing.

Just like that morning when the priest said, "God be with you," and me, shrouded in grief, locked eyes with him and simply said, "Fuck your god."

But I will keep us lit. I will not let them extinguish.

"'Cause we've been on the run so long, they can't find us.
Who's gonna have to die to remind us?
That it feels like we chose this blindly,
Now I'm gonna fuck up a hotel lobby..."

You.

You did not have to die to remind me but your death has reminded some who do not seem to be taking it well that you were my anchor. You were my life support. You were my life and I was yours, not to take a piece away from anyone else but to compliment.

Our life together was so beautiful.

But some need to write their own narratives, I guess.

Erasure for their own smeared picture, thinking everyone else is blind when they all see the hatred and the hurt caused.

"'Cause these tough times they keep coming,
Last night I might have messed it up again.
Some days like I'm barely breathing,
But after we were high and the love dope died, it was you..."

Always you.

And sometimes I mess up.

Sometimes I am told what I do or say is right or wrong. Navigating this complete rupture of the world is a near-impossible task and I do not have the toolkit.

My counselor told me this week she feels I am an anomaly - I do what she would normally tell others not to do, what she told me not to do until now - to not use energy reserves that do not exist in an attempt to forge ahead.

But she said she has realized I only function on doing; I cannot sit still and I must channel my emotions - hurt and anger - into trying to do some good.

But other times I simply carry my grief while screaming it wherever I go.

And that has made some uncomfortable.

"The pill I keep taking,
The nightmare I wake in.
There's nothing, no nothing, nothing but you..."

My house feels like a pharmacy now.

Take one in the morning, one in the afternoon and three in the evening.

Anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, pain management and sleep.

You.

My beautiful trauma.

And if I had to go back and do it all again, knowing how we physically ended, I would take all of the pain again for the love we had.

How someone can try to erase that, I will never know.

I loved you from the first time I met you, I loved you more when I had finally given in and I love you still. Nothing on this mortal coil will ever change that.

"My love,
My love, my drug,
Oh..."

"My name is Rosemary..."

"I heard you say you don't feel right,
Somethin' must've changed inside.
She said, I still love the bands and the boy down the street,
But everybody else gives me the creeps..."

I don't feel right.

I haven't felt right in a long time.

I tried to have a normal week with Stef but nothing was normal. Everything was pushingpushingpushing and just trying to smile and laugh through the hurt. And even Edmonton isn't the same anymore; even going to Montana for the first time and spending days shopping and laughing until the store staff were confused and just hugging and grabbing obnoxious shoes to buy weren't the same.

A Wednesday spa day to wash it all away.

And a message that had me in tears at 8 am and Stef so angry I had to beg her not to blow.

A narrative being spun.

"And there's a hole in you now,
Like the windshield was taken out.
And everybody's hurt, and mine ain't the worst,
But it's mine and I'm feelin' it now..."

No grief is bigger or smaller than another.

Every path is different.

And writing has always been therapeutic to me.

Mr. Broderick told me in grade 8 to never stop writing because he knew it was my outlet.

I have always felt if I do not let something out it becomes poison and it courses through my veins.

And if I choose to share that publicly, to share the ugliness and the hurt and the deception, then maybe it helps someone else who is caught under this shroud of pain and who has not found their words yet.

I know some of you have messaged me and I hear you.

If my words help then that is more than I can ask for.

"Sometimes I think it's haunted inside this house..."

I came home to a shattered glass on my counter.

The one thing in this house that meant the most to me.

And I broke.

The tears won't stop and I feel so much loss over and over again.

Thank you to Jeff who replaced it with another when he heard but it will never be the same.

Nothing will ever be the same.

"And I hear ya cryin' over the phone,
'Where have all the good times gone?'
Downing the glass of shouting matches,
Lost in the songs they don't write anymore..."

So I sit here.

And I turn on the music that has gotten me through since I was a child and my dad told me there is a song for everything. He was right. My dad raised me on music, movies and hockey. There is, indeed, a song for everything.

I was told not to write.

Not to share.

That it was wrong.

But I will not stop writing and I will not stop sharing.

I will not stop speaking truth.

If that truth hurts you then you maybe need to look inside and adjust the reasons why it hurts.

"It's all right, I ain't tryin' to bring you down tonight,
'Oh my, my, my, she says, I don't mind,
I'm just so tired of the empty sheets I sleep beside...'"

And I do not try to bring anybody down; I try to let it out. I try to release the hurt and the pressure, hit the valve that will put it out there in the hopes that someone else feels their pressure released too.

Because there are far too many of us.

"Heard you say it's gone all wrong,
Since when did the days and the nights get so long?
She said, I still miss the scene and the dying breed, but now I'd settle for some company..."

Company.

Barely anyone checks in anymore.

The girls still chat and I still talk to one of his friends and his wife who are such beautiful people who get it, but it is a damn lonely existence.

Company.

Sometimes it would be nice to know someone cares enough to come by.

"And there were things that I did, just so I could feel anything,
But somewhere along,
Something went off,
And I woke up with blood on my lips..."

Maybe there were times when I have said or written things many feel I should not have because they are private but they poured from my fingers.

"And yeah, and there were nights I just did whatever I liked..."

Trauma.

Hurt.

Trauma responses are weird and sometimes you wake up and wonder why you said or did a certain thing.

It is hard to understand that until you have experienced it.

But there are zero regrets.

It's called boundaries, building walls and deciding who deserves my energy rather than who can walk in, zap it for their own gain and walk away.

I refuse to be hurt anymore.

Will I ever be the same?

God no.

Nor would I expect to be.

And if you are hurt by my words about your own words or actions that is a you problem, not a me problem.

Find a lie.

If your words or actions evoke negative commentary that hurts you - maybe ask why that is.

I am now realizing my worth and that I do not have to take anyone bringing me down.

And nobody has the right to silence my voice or truth.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

"My name is Rosemary,
You'd be lucky to meet me..."

And I'll rely on my army. Always. It's bigger than some think.

"Someday they're gonna love me back to life..."