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.