I Remember You

When the sensation begins to rise within me that hot bile that originates in the center of my chest until it pushes just behind my tongue, I want to scream, to let it out. But I cannot. My mouth is snapped shut, twisted into a pleasant expression, the antithesis to everything I am inside.

“I’m fine.” The only words that come. It assuages him. Makes him feel that he’s done his part. We both know that I’m lying, but he’s unwilling to question me, to follow that nagging in the back of his mind. It’s easier this way. He can go on with his life and doesn’t have to bother with the sticky details of me.

We both win, really. Telling would only leave me exposed to him. I’ll get thrown into the winds, torn and bare, and then left to pick up the pieces on my own. The thought envelops my mind and fire rises from the back of my neck, up over my ears, and spreads across my cheeks as I’m slowly filled with loathing.

I imagine a bloated stuffed dog drowned in water, left out on the sidewalk in a rainstorm, the careless owner safe and warm inside. The soft brown and white fur is matted and crusted with flecks of mud. The soft white insides filled to the point of saturation. The little dog remains trapped in the same repose: sitting, knocked over on its side, one paw raised. After the rain ends, the water hides inside, waiting.

I can’t help it when I feel this way. It’s a dangerous addiction. I hate it with everything within me, and I love it too. It envelops me and keeps me safe. But the desire to be something other than myself leaves me caught between passions and it’s shredding me inside.

He smiles as I give him the words he wants to hear and looks for the next hand to shake, the next smiling paper face. The hard, unforgiving wood digs into my back as I sit, my body uncomfortably straight in the pew. I grasp the hymn book and wait for everyone else to finish. In a few moments the preacher coughs and announces that it is “time for the congregation to be seated.” I smile at the phrase, remembering the passage from Ecclesiastes that lists all the things that there is a “time for.” Does the preacher think he could make the list? Maybe.

 He opens his large black Bible and begins today’s sermon. It is about the Temptation of Jesus. I’m familiar with the story and my mind begins to wander. I used to take every word from the pulpit as if it were from God himself. I’m not sure when things changed. When I changed.

I remember when you were on my side, or at least I yours. You calmed me and I assumed you would always be there. But, in trying new things and exploring the world that I had rejected for so long, I somehow lost sight of you. And now I’m just left with this feeling in my chest, this guilt within my heart. But don’t worry; it’s not because of you. I have always loved you, you know that couldn’t change.

I’ve changed the way I look at love, I’ve changed the way I look at life, and changed the way I know you look at me. I’ve changed so many things I’m left with nothing that I believed in for so long. I guess I’ll just believe in the burning in my throat and this tightness in my lungs. It’s all that I have left. The preacher’s wrapping things up and I’m running out of time to push the temptation to spew over my fellow congregants again down into myself.

Just remember, I’m fine.