we do damage to limbs
in ’91, stompin’ you out with black Timbs
Prodigy and the H-A-V-O-C, from the Q.B.C
puttin’ cowards where they supposed to be
if I don’t know your face, then don’t come close to me
i got too much beef for that drama in the third degree
I didn’t want to eulogize this one. I didn’t want to dig a grave. Because when I do this, God listens. She’ll kill it. Even as I do my best to resurrect it, it never truly comes back. Zombiefied, sure. But not living, not breathing, not viable. It’s this constant lesson to be learned: you can’t resurrect man – and his moments, journeys, escapes – like I do. I save and you don’t. So every time you try to bring this back, it will never work out in the ways you hope.
This series is four parts. Clearly, I’ve tried.
Resurrecting dead love – or their ghosts – is not my ministry.
Recently, I heard a sermon about relationships being seasonal. An ending because it was time for you to let go and let them find God. I can only carry someone so far until it’s time for them to learn how to walk on their own. Carrying a loved one doesn’t apply here but learning that it’s time to let go does. I can’t keep up with how I feel, how I’m moving and what I hope this could be.
Free therapy comes at a cost.
If you asked me how this started, I couldn’t tell you. We found ourselves to be in each other’s orbit. Mutuals, virtual mostly. We just built a bond, I guess. Then the pandemic hits and you find yourself leaning into people you never thought were sturdy enough to handle it. Then promises go empty, care goes unnoticed. You think you’re being too strong but in the realizations, you figure out that one of their weaknesses is that they can’t take what you give. You know it yourself. People get too close and you start to build distance. Care feels like an invasion of privacy. Struggles are burdens. Maybe that’s what brought you two closer.
Again, free therapy ain’t cheap.
Recently I’ve felt like I did my duty. That it was time to cross over the river and into the land of giving a fuck about myself. I realized that I hyperfixate on the nuances of relationships because it takes away from looking inward.
Writing this ain’t just about deading what this is. It’s about putting how I feel to rest.
How I look at this is what I’ve said in writings past: this was all about validating my existence as a person. This was the popular boy in high school and the quiet, nerdy girl holding on for dear life hoping for one glance in the hallway just so she could be delusional for the rest of her week. So she could call her BFF after school with a story to tell. Only for her friend to tell her to “get the f*ck over it.” Not because she’s mean but because she’s right. Flints and steel start flames.
Because she saw me – and I saw me – living a life without a care in the world and knew I was happy. I was. God saw it too because the sermon about leaving a ministry I wasn’t called for happened soon after. And I listened.
Let me give the people what I – and God – want.
To be freed from the “what ifs” and the “that could mean something.” To experience what you thought all this was in real time and be able to actualize it all. To see it and not just imagine.
Freedom is real.
ciara roslyn-james 