Keratosis

Let me tell you a story.

This week I received two pieces of news. Both about people who walked into the dark and left no forwarding address.

One wrote to me, explained their long absence and how they felt about the people they left in the lurch. They explained that it "100%" was not my fault- I hadn't done anything to make them step away. They had a very difficult, very human set of experiences. I could relate. We made plans for coffee, offering up the small pool of grace deep within the knotted confines of my heart. They reassured me. That's all I ever want from people. Tell me I'm trying, I'm doing well. Tell me I'm not the root of your disenchantment.

This pressing need, this need that I wear on every square centimeter of my body and my being, is how people hurt me. They need not intend to, the target is so vast and achingly sensitive. I've been hit several times with golf balls - they need not aim to find my wounds. I want to be reassured - from friends I think close, from slightly boosted acquaintances, from total strangers. For that I will give up anything, go to the ends of the earth. I will knowingly be used, lashed by a hot temper, called insensitive for asking a single thing of someone. Told I lack commitment from someone who doesn't give a fuck.

I have a bad flareup of keratosis pilaris - little bumps that many people have on their upper arms. It's spread, so much of my smooth skin is bumpy. It's rarely irritated, but it feels like my hair is raised everywhere. My being is a disorder, it attacks itself hoping to make things better, yet the marks indicate the opposite. I know people I should tee off on for their selfish, hurtful natures and know it's not doing much except make me feel better for a half hour and feel worse for half a month.

The other piece of news came from a courier friendly to me. There is a deep wound crowbarring my rib cage apart. A relationship died like an amaryllis after the new year has concluded. A dark lake of ambiguity, the perplexing lights floating in the mire. The holiday cards I made, scratching them out with my trembling hand, were unacknowledged for the holidays, for their birthday one day away from my own. Nothing, not even "please stop." My comrade has been involved with this set of people like me, poly overlap stuff. They had found out the person who was silent had hoped I would "read between the lines" and just give up.

When I sit in my chair, overlooking the hotel lobby across the street, I pretend I know the lives of the people who transit through there. What do they care about? Who do they love? What do they want out of this city that, despite its dysfunction, I love in place of the children I will never have?

When someone hurts them, does it feel like it feels when someone hurts me? Do they feel joy or emptiness when people say "this calls for a celebration!" I don't know, I am looking through two panes of glass. These people don't owe me anything.

I don't have expectations.

There are people I do have expectations of, and feel guilty every time for my misjudgements. I thought we were close, I thought our conversations were a fair amount deeper than about the weather.

I thought you'd wave when you left.

Such foolish fantasies.

Artemis