A Pain That Could Change Me

The last shreds of the fairy tale open their eyes--dark remnants of existence that haunt a flat and barren landscape, since my awakening. I hear them moaning, and I sense them grim, floating about me, just above the surface. They gather round, look like fancy banshees. Their eyes dark black holes of wanting, they beg me to keep searching for it. I can feel their hunger. Their moans become screams.

Along comes a pain that could change me.

I allow it to linger, because I have no choice. It is too strong. I can't even find the boundaries of the story for this one.

Something takes hold of me. In my aloneness, I seem to access a collective vibration of pain polluting the air. I can't move around it. I am caught in the current, and all I can do is flow with it.

There are Christmas songs on the radio. They sound eery now, like they are melting, exposing the charade, all the pageantry for its emptiness--the harmonies too predictable, the dreams too unstable--the enchanting Christmas facade that builds so much momentum in a month, merely a runaway train.

Ahh, but it feels so real. After all, my entire life, Christmas was the one time of the year, that the illusion actually felt real--I dare say, I wanted it to be real.

So, to be on the outside looking in--of course, I am going to feel it.

I walk round back behind its one-dimensional trick for the fools, who would believe in the magic of Christmas.

Behind it, I find me. I am sitting around a fire warming my hands. My eyes are empty. It scares me to see myself this way. A Pain that Changed Me, is the title of a book sitting beside me.

I open the book and begin to read: There was just one fairy tale that I couldn't see through. It came out of nowhere, although I was aware of it coming all the time. I just had no idea it would end like this.

I study myself. I see a mix of sadness, and mostly anger in my expression--anger I didn't know I could feel. Mostly it is directed at specific people, but then back at myself.

It was that I needed my little girls 'round me this Christmas Eve, when they were getting ready for Santa Clause. I thought I could share them, but I couldn't. Nothing else mattered, so long as they were there sleeping in their beds, with the vision of sugar plums dancing in their heads.

I remembered that I didn't bother to set out any cookies, let alone carrots for the reindeer. There was no magic in it anymore.

I shut the book. I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like much of anything.

I don't feel like much of a warrior today.

The spirits caught in between cling to me. I allow them. I can't really identify with anything else at the moment. I prefer the spectral tonight, better than words exchanged with the humanoids, that make the pain feel all the more real.

I don't think I can bring myself to apologize tonight.

I know that this pain could change me permanently if I let it. It has in this moment. The emptiness could stay. I could watch myself spiral into nothingness, but not in the way I'd always planned--not in a good way.

I hear a plastic Ho Ho Ho--that there are actual intersecting moments in time, in the physical world-- that hold the power to destroy. What kind of place is this?

It is as if I understand that how I choose to live this Christmas story, will reveal if I am truly free.

It should be easier to let go of wanting the illusion to be real tonight-- you know, being on the outside and all.

But it isn't.

I have no choice. I ride with the earthbound prisoners tonight, floating from window to window, looking for something picture perfect to set my pain free from the separation--to imagine being on the inside looking out.

My girls are warm and glowing in the window, lit up with excitement for a jolly old man to shower them with gifts. They are happy this Christmas Eve. I'm sure they are. It has to be enough.

When they are with me tomorrow afternoon, after the fairy dust has settled in their eyes, I will hold them close. I might even find myself looking out the window, but never, ever, EVER will I look out in the same way.

This pain will leave a scar. I brace myself for future Christmases, in memory of this one.