Note to the reader, I wrote this to help me sort out my thoughts in an attempt to move on from past events, which it has. My writing has a lot of to be desired but for the first time in my life I'm working to improve it. Try not to read too much into it or judge my overly dramatic writing too harshly for it's merely a writing exercise.

The battle appears to be ending. There is no outright winner just a reluctant acceptance of stalemate as an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness creeps in from the shadows of an untold past. Bad decisions were made by all involved, and with all the will in the world the past cannot be rewritten. If only bygones could be bygones.

After such an unnecessarily long battle how can victory ever taste sweet? ‘The bitter taste in my mouth would never allow it’ you once said- how those words resonate with me now.

The irony of this battle is that I was thrown into it unknowingly. I would never have chosen such a path yet my preferences were never part of the equation; it appears that no one considered asking the opponent. Realisation brought resentment, which closed in around me like fog over the riverbank on a cold winter's night covering so heavily I could no longer see the path ahead.

Some would say I am weak for it was I who pronounced defeat at the first hurdle when all the cards were finally laid out in front of me. The odds had not been dealt in my favour this time. The illusion of my naive youthful optimism guarded for so long shattered in an instant to expose the truth in alls its painful entirety. We are not always the masters of our fate I learned. 

I stepped aside as gracefully as the defeated party can in such a situation. Acquiescent is a fitting word. Respect was due to those brave enough to leap into uncharted territories to chase dreams filled with higher aspirations, brimming with intellect and egos to match. Courage and refrain were conjured, a last ditch attempt to finish with poise as I embraced the new hand destiny had dealt me. I let the victorious march on to their much-anticipated future and I could finally shut the door on what felt like an eternity of half-truths and unanswered questions.

Relief flooded in. I started out on my journey to a new beginning, not caring to consider those that had already jumped ship. To say my path was without its difficulties would be a lie but from an unexplained strength I never turned around to watch the course that others had taken. I don’t think I have ever exercised such self-control in my entire life.

We all know the facts that unexpectedly changed the course of this story. The tower card was my only clue but even this had not been an adequate warning to predict this outcome.

Months later, in a moment of distraction I unknowingly wandered back to the battleground, back to the door I had closed so long ago. It flung open so easily I didn’t realise the enormity of what I had done. 

How quickly ignorance can be replaced with unwanted comprehension. How quickly awareness can consume your entire being. Thought streams unraveled like the rope of an anchor plummeting towards the bottom of the ocean. Soon everything would be underwater. The identity of a stranger seeped into my life like an insipid gas filling every space, ever present yet not quite pernicious enough to kill.

This presence isn’t acknowledged nonetheless it exists and continues to pull me down. How can I free myself from something that binds me invisibly? The chains of the devil I recall on the tarot card weigh heavy on my mind. I go on chasing the shadows of an untold past as a delusional obsession consumes me. The beat of the drum sounds in the distance, a voice urges me on, ‘begin begin’.

And this was the story of how I found myself here, foolishly retracing my steps back towards to the battleground, a place that never should have been revisited. Had I forgotten the battle was already over? 

Wearily I sit down to avoid being swept away by the next tide of doubt.

I wait for clarity to come to my rescue.

We can be an island apart from a ceaseless war on our heart
Harbored in a fortress insurmountable
Taller than affliction, safe wherever we are
Erasing horror and disgust
Rewinding the sorrow and the rust
Before our suffering’s suffering, hadn’t we suffered enough?
.....

And I can feel the difference when the day begins
Like all I know is, "This year will be the year we win."
We smoke the paper from the banner from our past parades
And start again, before the memory of the mess we've made

But wait for me,
Keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
A rose. 

I wanted to be a wife and create a beautiful home to keep my man happy, but there was more in life than being a diligent maid with a permanent pussy.

For A Traveler

I only have a moment so let me tell you the shortest story,

about arriving at a long loved place, the house of friends in Maine,

their lawn of wildflowers, their grandfather clock and candid

portraits, their gabled attic rooms, and woodstove in the kitchen,

all accessories of the genuine summer years before, when I was

their son’s girlfriend and tied an apron behind my neck, beneath

my braids, and took from their garden the harvest for a dinner

I would make alone and serve at their big table with the gladness

of the found, and loved. The eggplant shone like polished wood,

the tomatoes smelled like their furred collars, the dozen zucchini

lined up on the counter like placid troops with the onions, their

minions, and I even remember the garlic, each clove from its airmail

envelope brought to the cutting board, ready for my instruction.

And in this very slight story, a decade later, I came by myself,

having been dropped by the airport cab, and waited for the family

to arrive home from work. I walked into the lawn, waist-high

in the swaying, purple lupines, the subject of   June’s afternoon light

as I had never been addressed — a displaced young woman with

cropped hair, no place to which I wished to return, and no one

to gather me in his arms. That day the lupines received me,

and I was in love with them, because they were all I had left,

and in that same manner I have loved much of the world since then,

and who is to say there is more of a reason, or more to love?

Source: Poetry (May 2014).

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.

Plasm 90:12

Vus saw me as the fresh of his youthful dream. I would bring him the vitality of jazz and the endurance of a people who had survived over three hundred and fifty five years of slavery. With me in his bed he would challenge the loneliness of exile. With my courage added to his own he would challenge the ignominious white rule in South Africa to an end. If I didn't already have the qualities he needed, then I would just develop them. Infatuation made me believe in my ability to create myself into my lover's desire. That would be nothing for a stepper.

The Heart of a Woman
Maya Angelou