remedial hell

sometimes to heal, we need to dance in the fire....

Ill show you mine if you show me yours...the red pill, or the blue, my dear love...how far down the rabbit hole would you like to go?...Shall I take both? I want to have my cake and eat it too....I want the red and the blue...do you?

Its been a long time since I visited the basement.  I don't like it down there, staunch and murky, lacking light...lacking life....only memories and dusty old books....I can smell the nauseating musk of old, rotting paper...the mold almost reaching out to grab me with its twisted little fingers...growing strong from all the times I've tried to flood it there...As I walk in the dampness, I notice a bright purple box, tucked away in the corners, in the shadow...so pretty and out of place...I know where it's from, but how it got here is a puzzle...I never venture there...I stair at the bottom of the stairs, afraid to go near...So many years of silence, and yet constantly tugging at my heart, pulling me backwards...I guess tonight I'll go visit...return to you what is yours, and maybe leave with all that is left of me...not much, but it is all I have...Once there, I am surrounded by bright little boxes, wrapped in pretty string, signed in blood....I look around and see the beauty of which I miss so much...all of you, even in the pain and angst of your attic...So many years of silence, but tonight you forgot and left your projector on...playing old movies, old memories...beautiful, and burned at the edges from the fires you've tried to set....reminiscent of a basement I know all too well...I thought so many times I had cried enough to wash it away, yet still it stands, staunch, poignant...I see you standing in the corner, in the shadows, clinging to your bucket, waiting for the rain to fall...so fast to withdraw the water that I let flow, making sure it doesn't reach the books on the shelves I so desperately want to soak...Why wont you just let this ship sink? Why must you keep it all afloat?...why...

We're tied together, fiber and blood, tooth and bone...every nerve wrapped tightly around your own...so entwined, the fissure left some of you with me...you are ingrained in me and the only escape I fear, is there isn't one....I could sever my arteries, and pierce this maladjusted heart, only to find more of you grow back in the scars...I must go now, I cannot stay to watch the movies...I cannot stay in the ashes on the floor...back to my basement I retreat, absent a pretty purple package....

Why did I come this time you ask, why now, why at all?  My dear, I have been sitting, looking, listening, waiting...Sobbing...for so long, I have been avoiding the demons locked in that basement...hidden away where none can see...even as my fingers traipse across old broken binding, I do not see...I only hear the rattling of their steel cage..."Come, come my dear, please let us out to play, far too long, you've kept us locked away."  "Try as you might, my dear, we're never far from sight.  You've wrapped us in heavy chain, poured concrete and bars, soldered together with your blood, kept alive by your beating heart."  " I can assure you, we'll never go away, you should just let us out to play.  You wont escape the pain."  Outstretched bony fingers, trying to lure me close, daring me, brazen..."Try and be happy, go on, we dare you to want, don't think we cant stir up some dust in this haunt."  Stirred up so violent it came under the basement door....laying spoil my immaculate floor....smoke and ash, now the air I breathe..."come down for a visit please..."  "Remember his taste, his smell, his ease."  Damn you, I breathe in so deep....My mind couldn't stop my body from twisting in reverie...the curve of your face, your salt and pepper hair, just a stubble, barely there....your gruff voice, beckoning, "baybeeeee...."  Everything I know too well...my demons sure do enjoy my hell.   The most treacherous of all, the paintings of eyes on the walls...colors rich in amber, brown and green....a color inescapable it seems...I see them around me every day...how could she have the same colors as you...f**k....God can be so cruel.....

I hear the vociferation in the attic...the stomping...the pain...Your demons left a pretty purple box down here today...I returned it with a price, though it will never be paid...I'm sure now, our demons come out to play when we're away...lets lay them down to sleep, and lock them back in their cage...There isn't much to say, everything seems to have been spoken....the truth in this chaos, we will both always be broken...Maybe you're right, time will only tell...can we ignore each other, pretend the other exist?  And know full well, it wasn't supposed to end like this......