Another

I know that I have a lot of comments to reply to. I love you all for them, and I'm sorry I haven't responded to them.

My life is a shitshow of epic proportions at the moment. Seriously. But strange and beautiful events occur in a storm.

In the midst of the melee, something happened that I didn't see coming. Well, I did see it coming, but I certainly refused to accept the extent to which she was going to crash into my life.

She was there. It was there. The quiet undercurrent of a raging sea. I tried to ignore it. This was never a path I truly contemplated, the "not just for fun" path.

She's contemplating. We are more complicated than just two or three. We are the dynamic we exist within, a dynamic she has not really seen lain bare.

I didn't see her coming. She was there. The feeling was there. I denied its extent for as long as I could.
But what is life on the safe road? Life, love,being, these glorious messy circumstances we call life...They often exist beyond that which we define as our comfort zone.

I know...I'm a hot mess. I'm way to far beyond denial to pretend that I am not!

What is a Queen on the Board?

In chess, a lot of emphasis tends to be placed on the queen as the most powerful piece. Yet she has one purpose, and one purpose only--the safety of her king, which often ultimately is defined by the downfall of the opposing king. Her king is her purpose, her sacrifice relevant only in relation to him.

What is a queen on the board without the king? A figurehead to make the other pieces believe that the game goes on after checkmate? She has no real purpose, no meaningful moves. She exists merely as a piece on a checkered board, with a few brokenhearted pieces left at her side. But not the one piece which gives purpose to her position and existence, not the one piece which defines the moves made by all other pieces.

Tomorrow I will open the building as I usually do, for the first time ever, not on the phone with him. I will step through the doorway into the building he designed and which he will never step foot in again. I will write a quote on the board that one of his employees wanted to post but didn't because they were afraid to get in trouble. I will likely be fired soon anyways, and a queen who has already lost the king has nothing left to lose.

I will approach the vaults in silence of the morning, knowing that each time I open them may be the last, soon enough to be their keeper no more. As so many times before, I shall spin the heavy tumblers and caress their cold solid steel with my other hand, gently requesting that they yield their treasures to me. I will give the gentle tug one gives an object that is considerably larger and stronger than themselves, and watch them swing slowly open.

After the vaults open, I will disarm the security system related to the part of the building that was all his and change into my uniform. Each step will be nearly the same as the many steps taken so many times before. Except that this time I will go through a different doorway and sit in the silence of one of his rooms, with the quiet humming of fans and the fruits of his labor. And I will cry.

I will cry for the moves made, the pieces sacrificed, the lost pieces still on the board, and the wagered dreams.
I will cry for being a queen who no longer has a king on the board, my sacrifice made pointless by his fall.
As I stand on the board of his design, among the decimated remnants of his soldiers, I will say goodby to all that he built, knowing that he poured his heart and soul into the very walls, and that each day there is very likely my last.

Fired...

They fired him.

And I'm still there. They "hope [I'll] stay".

They need me.

I need the paycheck.

I would like nothing more than to walk away and watch it fucking implode without us.

We built that shit.

I see plenty.

My Addiction

Sitting on the bathroom floor, I sank into the feeling. Grabbed it like a lifeline hanging over the edge of a cliff.

It all started with a random comment he made, in a very dominant and somewhat aggressive manner, about how I would fuck someone at work.

Sitting on the bathroom floor, feeling the marks of his belt rising from my skin, I knew to the core of my being, with utter and complete certainty, that I was alive. That this is what I need to survive. What I need to wake up and want to live another day.

Owned.

He teased and tortured me with humiliation and pain.

This is what I need. To survive the self-repression, the people, the misery of the job and the miles upon miles of concrete.

Owned. I need his control more than I need any fucking thing in this world.

My drug. My addiction. The feeling of his ownership, the growl of possessiveness in his voice, the unwavering authority in his movement, the way his hands have no doubt that this body belongs to him...Not me...Raw dominance. When it radiates off him, I fucking melt.

It really doesn't...

I See...

So...It's been a month. Apparently. A fairly crappy month at that. Time just keeps on ticking by, and there's not enough of it in a day. Or a week. Or a month. If I get on a real roll, I'll hit a whopping 12 posts this year!

He sees that we are on the verge. On the edge of making this a success. Close. So fucking close. And he's right. He sees that he needs me for our personal survival, for the seemingly ever elusive success of a business he has given his all. He sees that he needs me for his drams to be reality. He sees that he is on the brink of making those dreams a reality.

I see that he is not really, truly, happy.

I see that I have been repressing pieces of me. And I'm over it. SO fucking over it. I see that the people I work for have an entirely different approach to loyalty than I do. I see that if you piss off the bosses wife, your gone--no conversation, no second chances.
 I see that I make promises. Lots of promises. Based upon what my bosses tell me. I see that they don't keep the promises they made to my husband, and I wonder. I wonder how many empty promises I have made to these people as I push them for more. Always wanting more from them, and never giving it.

I see the hole in my soul. That empty place where trees once held the space, where the stars caressed my soul, and the wind whispered of long forgotten dreams.
I see a slave set free to wander a new reality, tethers pulling across the sands of time, his voice whispering "mine" into the void of who I used to be. I see too much time spent not being me.

I see that it is dangerous to live in a world where I cannot be...Me. It is a precarious placement, the insecurity of undesired movement, a constant forgetting of the moment, a life built on promises made and likely left un-kept.

Most of all...Most of all I see all the repressed little pieces of me. All the moments of not being who I am. An attempt at satisfying the needs he has asked me to fill, at keeping the position he needs me in. When really, I'm ready to say, fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck this. Fuck this place.

I say that I'm over it. I'm tired of repressing pieces of me for the comfort and satisfaction of others. And he tells me "Just a little bit longer. With success comes the freedom to be...You".

I am bound by dreams. Such amazing little things. I am bound into conformity by the needs of his dreams. Such sneaky little things.
Where once there were chains now sits a tenuous line. Such a fine little line that sometimes it is difficult to define. I have lost my reason and rhyme.

Strangely enough, this job has become one of the most consuming expressions of my slavery--I am still here because he asks me to be. I shut my mouth because he tells me to. I stay because I am his. Only because I am his.

There was once a time and a girl. I did not like who she was. I did not like what she had become. And so I decided not to be her any more. The girl I then became is gone. She is a memory. Like the voice of a loved one long since gone, or the feeling of a place you can no longer be, the touch of a hand long since returned to earth, or a dream you once had.

I never thought that I would change the world, and I won't. I just wanted to live poetry, to exist in the pursuit of something greater than this reality we accept as our own, to show people that there is magic far beyond what we see as reality, that there are things in this world worth fighting for beyond the physical desires and needs upon which we place so much importance.

There is a fire inside, banked up quietly and simmering under the noise of daily life. So close. I get so close. Then he is there, whispering of the dreams I told him I would follow him through. The dreams he's held so long. The dreams that I promised to help make a reality.
And so I don't tell my bosses to take me as I am or fire me. I don't speak my piece with that glorious release of...Being regardless of the objections of others.

I ask him where we draw the line. How far are we willing go, how okay are we with what we have become, how willing are we to continue the compromise of who we are. How many shitty people do we have to keep while good people get fired or reprimanded, with whom do we draw the line and say, no--not this person. Not this one. For this one, we will leave. How many loyalties does one compromise and still sleep at night?

It's a dead feeling. Like the difference between a forest of trees and a clear-cut mountain of dead wood. Like the difference between drowning in pain and passion, or just...Not being there. It's like knowing you are asleep and forcing yourself not to wake up, no matter how badly you want to.

Yet then he is there. Whispering of the dreams I promised to help him fulfill. One more moment. One more minute. One more hour. One more day. One more week. On more month. One more year. One more life.