now listening to: how to disappear completely (radiohead)

*****

i'm on the train, now leaving berlin.

kinda left a little of myself behind there, didn't i?

there are a lot of dreams i would like to work on now.

but yet.

i have the pain of something that i want to leave behind, but physically i can't.

it's been so many years and today, it's sitting here, alive and well in my present reality.

how can you not believe in ghosts.

i was sick of therapy and talking about things. most therapists are weak individuals. the problem wasn't in the room when we talked. the problem is when i'm alone somewhere and someone wants to get close to me. and then he's in that room with us. my ghost. and i hate it.

i can't separate things in my mind.

how to explain how i got there. how to explain what was wrong with me that i couldn't get him to leave. and all i could see were the knives, less than a foot behind his hands.

and he can berate me. and berate me. and berate me. and i'll take it. but i just couldn't get him to leave.

to be held hostage in your own home.

and what you had to give up that night and forever to trade for your freedom.

no one knows.

they know but they don't know.

they know but they don't know.

did it happen that way?

you don't build your fences right. you build them too close to the home, when you were supposed to build them further out.

so afterwards, they sent me to meetings to supposedly understand my situation. i only went once. there was a woman there who talked about how her brother molested her for years, and how he's happily married now with children while she lives in a permanent dusk. how when she confronted her brother, he denied it. and when she confessed to her mother, her mother asked her why she was trying to stir up trouble when it was so far in the past. and so all she had were these meetings for her to spin in circles. and from the bored, impatient faces of everyone involved, she obviously told the same secret every week.

what was the key out of her hell if no one was there to deal with it but herself?

some ghosts you can never shake.

some things you can't convince yourself never happened no matter how much you try. and every day, you go about telling a lie.

you tell people a story so they can swallow your pain, because a superficial cut is easier to provide support for than something they are ill-equipped to comprehend. some depths of pain are not things people willingly welcome into their homes.

but i know.

i knew what i had to exchange for my freedom. for my safety.

there might have been another way. but i didn't think. i couldn't think. and still those knives. within half an arm's reach away from his hands. his eyes bulging in anger. a tinge of mania. and still. those knives. those knives those knives those knives.

brian bought me a new set of knives when he moved in. somehow, he was completely oblivious of the symbolism of those knives, yet intuitively and without my permission, he threw them away and replaced them.

but sometimes, i look at his knives and i can't seperate them from the others.

no one knows about what happened. what happened inside me. when a part of you sacrifices another part so that the rest may live. and what of the part that was sacrificed?

every moment that someone circles closer and closer, i await the moment when i'll have to call him out of the darkness. and then i'll remember.

once upon a time.

i exchanged immediate safety for a ghost that will follow me into my most intimate moments with another human being. he will always be in that room with us every time i have to go back to that place.

and no one knows.

i can not communicate it. what happened. what happens when you sacrifice. people may not understand weakness. because a man will always be stronger than a woman even if a woman has more power. and in a moment, he can break her, no matter how strong she is.

there are many types of pain that i do not fear. but to feel safe, and suddenly in the next moment--you're back in that place with him.

but it was what i traded in order to escape. and still, those knives. those knives on the counter, within arm's reach. those knives are a reminder that no one fully escapes once they've been held prisoner. it will always be a part of you, and you, a part of it.