here's to the night

Those glimmering nights, as translucent and effervescent as champagne bubbles; where laughter was free and salvation assured. 

I am beautiful now but I enjoyed my beauty then, the golden glamour and the dark-lined lashes giving me the confidence to flutter and smile as I wound my lover around my little finger, secure in the knowledge that he liked it there.

Does she love you the way that I did? 

Windows down in the car, the warm summer night whistling through...the glow of the cigarettes and the burble of the water bottles...it was never enough, but it was never lacking either. 

Slamming doors were a happy sound then - they signaled arrivals and new opportunities, new kisses, new music. 

The flash and sparkle was not confined to crystal...they sparked among us, our conversation, our laughter, our glances were enough.

I'm tired of asking...never tired of remembering...until I wake up in the enveloping darkness, shaken from those glorious dreams of what truly happened...I wake with a sense of having been falling, and clutch at the sheets and gasp to find I'm lying still, that I'm alone, and no one is holding my hand.

I turn over and feel my heart burn within my chest, and I remind myself that the pain means that I'm still alive - like frostbite, where there is pain, there is hope.

I close my eyes but the visions come back; that is no longer my life - just something I used to know.

please tell me why

I stood in the Pacific ocean today, in a blue dress.  The waves washed around my legs as I stood and turned my face towards the West, into the sun.

I had dark glasses on so that nobody could see me cry; I wore a mask of makeup so that nobody could see the bruises on my soul.

As my blue dress fluttered in the wind the sand sparkled at my feet and I inhaled the salty breeze...little white shells danced in the ocean and seagulls moaned in the sky.  And all I had left to do was cry.

I put my hand up to my face and pushed away the tears, and laughed at little fishes waltzing round my feet, watching the plish-plashing gentleness of their home.  Oh the sparkle and glitter lightened my heart as I imagined the serenity of the deep sea, undisturbed by waves and humanity.

A gull stood at the water's edge, hoping for a gift, wary of a curse.  He cocked his eye at me, wondering to which clan I belonged.  I turned towards him but prudence overcame hope, and he flew away.

I turned back for one last look at the glittering glamour, and turned my face away from the sun, and the light, and slowly made my way home.

If only my head would stop hurting.

The more I ask for love the more I am mocked and ridiculed that I cannot be happy alone.  I can be happy alone, I just am not happy now.  I wonder how my naysayers would feel if they had not been married for a year, three years, thirty years, sixty years.  How if everyone they wanted to love either kicked them to the curb after they got what they wanted, or disappeared into the night with not so much as a goodbye, let alone an explanation?
How would they feel if every time they reached out, in fear and trembling, for comfort and support, to be exhorted to work, work harder on their careers, to forget love and happiness for they ought be happy, with all of their advantages! and carry on in this vein until the speaker can only be silenced with shouting anger?

I know that I am not doing well.  I sit on the floor, books, pens, and notepads scattered around me.  I sit at my desk, and stare at the blinking cursor; it mocks me with its infinite patience.

I was brought here by a lie.  Lies, all lies!

I left my family.  I left my friends.  I left everything, and for what?  I'm striving to squeeze the lemons until they give me enough juice to enable me to return home, but every day I grow weaker, every day I grow sicker, and every day robs me of just a little more hope.

I used to love my work so much.  I still love it...but I am stuck.  And alone - alone out here - and my family seems farther and farther away every day.

There's something about a dream...

...especially when you dream of home.