Trouble Letting Go
© 1999 Jim Rivers
 

Who comes to get what is left of me
Help me forget what you did to me

They say it makes a stronger soul
They say it takes some letting go
They say it comes and it goes

They said more but they don't know
I'm having trouble letting go

Who I once was, was insane
Tears that are lost in the rain

They say it all turns on a day
They say it burns itself away
They say it's best left that way

They said more but they don't know
I'm having trouble letting go

~

There was a sudden tightness in my chest as if my heart were being squeezed. There was a numbness of mind and spirit that accompanies the realization of betrayal, before the rage sets in. There was the deeply spiraling staircase that leads to the basement of the soul where ill spoken and half forgotten words still echo. Where wax images of regretted scenes come to life in a macabre theatre of the damned. There were softly distant words encouraging and consoling but faint and formless like the wind turning in a cavern.

How long I stayed in the dark was difficult to tell, time had a different meaning here then in the linear sense I used to know. Here there was ample time to rearrange the wax actors, replaying every scene until all the circular logic became redundant and repulsive. Then I realized I had been betrayed by another but what was worse was the betrayal of myself. Alright, I had loved and lost, trusted and been cruelly used but I would not let that color my world forever.

One step at a time I reclimbed out of the depths. At each step I recited a lesson. Generosity would be tempered with practicality, speculation would be tethered to logic, respect would be tendered where proven. Each step brought the doorway closer and the consoling whispers became clearer voices and even "I told you so" was welcome to my ears.

It was raining the day I reached the landing and opened the door. I saw some old friends waiting there, some could not believe how I had let myself go, others seem to know all to well where I had been. There are lots of questions and lots of slippery answers along the way. Such is life. Moving on.