Never That Simple

What I'm doing- is like trying to build a cathedral out of Popsicle sticks. And while one may admire the artistry of such a feat- anyone observing will instantly recognize it as a useless and laborious task.  Each attempt to come closer to peace finds me several paces further from it.  If it were as simple as applying my favorite shade of lipstick to the contours of my lips without the aid of a compact- I would soar.  Knowing this mouth all my life takes the work out of it.  But it's never that simple, is it?  You cannot just paint over the cracks and pretend the dilapidation is nonexistent.  The truth will bleed through eventually.  It's still there.  Like the mottled blemishes on the once mauve lips of  my youth, I know how they got there.  I only succeed in hiding them from the rest of the world.  It's the reason I don't leave the house without lipstick.  But I know what's there from dragging smoke across them for the better part of eighteen years.  Damage.

This is my guilt.  Shining up the armor each morning.  Preparing for battle.  Locking out the world and showing a brave, war painted face.  Brandishing scars and weapons of sarcasm that tell the same story.  I fight against phantom assailants that are no more than shadows of my past.  They would disappear if I could just turn a light on.  I could back up and finally see the wholeness of me.  But I'm broken at best.  Constantly piecing together the ill-fitting parts for some semblance of normalcy. It's like groping around in a dark but familiar room.  When you knock into the end table, sending the lamp to the floor- it's not because you didn't know it was there.  You just weren't mindful of the known obstacles.  They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.  They would have had me committed years ago.

Sometimes I dream of a love that rights the wrong.  A love that hurts and heals simultaneously, a deserving love.  I came close once.  But in my haste, I mistook it for mine. I understand now that it was not mine to claim.  None of it is ours to keep.  We should simply pass it along like a message that may self-destruct once read. And be thankful someone thought us worthy of the mission.