badstar

Under

Out in the cold, here in the night
under the garish orange street lights,
strip me bare.
With the world watching,
take my coat.
It keeps me warm. I can be cold.
Take it, peel back my safety.
The clothing that clings to my skin, take that too.
No more shirt, no more jeans.
You see the poetry etched across my flesh,
do you hear the pain that screams,
invisible in plain sight?
My skin, you can have it too:
Epidermis, take it...
dermis, take it...
hypodermis, take it.
Under my skin, all that you never knew
all that you might not believe
all that you never suspected
because I give you no reason.
Sometimes I almost fool myself.
Muscles, tendons, ligaments
rip me, bleed me, shred me.
What was inside
is now on display to the world
Bare bone. Skeleton.
Can you go further?
Marrow. Core. Stop.
Did you want to see this?
Did you want to look so close?
You're not getting any closer
because you can't comprehend
complete breakdown of the sum total.
Under my clothes
Under my skin
Under the muscles and veins and bone
at the simple, cellular level
or farther down, atomic-
That's where it gets complicated.


I'm feeling...revealing tonight. Like I need to confess. Not like "Oh, here's another little bit I never talk about." But...everything. Every little thing I've ever said, done, thought, wanted, hated, liked, loved, rejected, believed, disbelieved, tasted, touched, felt, seen, heard, For some reason I feel like I need to tell the world. It's almost a compulsion. But I am not going to do that...1. It would take far too long and 2. Bad idea. Really bad idea. All I can say is that the world would not handle the utter, brutal minutiae of the complete, total no-holds-barred honesty of Renee very well. (To be fair, it would likely not take such honesty from anyone very well.) and as it is, I really have no desire to put myself out there on such an extreme level.

I take comfort in a certain degree of vulnerability. Maybe that's why I write some of the things I do, letting a little bit out here and there for the world to know. I guess it's what allows me to think of myself as being an open, honest person. Not that I'm not. If you ask me an honest question, unless I have a good reason not to, I'll probably answer it. (Note, that is not to be taken as an invitation for an ask Renee anything you want Livejournal free-for-all.)

I think it serves a couple of purposes...there's a certain level of validation in my own mind, even beyond simple truth, that I can say "I have nothing to hide".

Also, it's sort of a release valve. I learned the hard way a long time ago that it's a bad idea to hold things in for too long. If I hold things in for too long, I become emotionally exhausted. Which then manifests in physical exhaustion. As in, I can sleep for 24 hours, and feel like I've never slept a minute in my life.

A few weeks ago, I had written about the closeness of Apollo, and how it was not corresponding to the Delphic season for me, how it was all-encompassing, permeating, enveloping and the only slightly less intense closeness of Dionysus. I speculated on the possibility of feeling a more seasonally-corresponding shift after the Lampteria ritual...and I haven't really thought much of it again til the last few days, but after Lampteria, the stronghold released into a loose, non-smothering grasp. Apollo close and constantly present in a way that wasn't completely tangible in an inside-my-skin way, Dionysus hovering near almost always, but not trying to constantly remind me that he's there.

Tonight on my way home from work, I was thinking. Having hypothetical conversations with actual people in my head (er, not real people in my head, but hypothetical conversations in my head with people that I know in real life. Yeah.) Conversations that I should have had, would like to have if the opportunity ever arises, some that I should never have no matter how much I might want to...you get the idea. And suddenly, it all came flooding back tenfold. The pervasive feeling of presence in the spaces between every cell and atom of my skin, of vines twining almost painfully around my wrists, a certain languor, walking a little slower. An emotional rush, I almost cried a dozen times walking down my street from North ave. A disconnect from the outside world, and a bit from myself. Poetry rushing through my brain- I captured what I could above, but lost so much. I was convinced that I was dreaming. I stepped in front of the steps up to my house, certain that I would lose it all if I climbed them. I stood there looking up at the house, the right street, the right number...but I wasn't really sure it was mine. I convinced myself that I would not lose it all and walked up the steps. I wanted to stop on the porch and take off my coat and sit on the chair and write everything down, but it was too cold. I cane inside before I started writing and Unfortunately, I lost 99% of what was there.

It's okay, I still have that one percent. So I know it was real.

The solstice is in less than 24 hours. This should be an interesting winter.

Now, I think I need to sleep.