Last night I dreamed of blood. Blood on my hands. My hands on an object. The object rounded, ripe as fruit. Blood ran over my fingertips, stung my nose with it's heady fragrance of copper and wine. I sat with it coursing warm over my flesh, spilling over my wrists. It was warm, nearly hot.
I dug in with my fingertips. I scratched with my fingernails, pieced away at something that bled in running courses until warmth covered my arms, my lap. It touched my bare feet. I twisted them together against the floor, tapping my toes in sticky warm saltiness.
Pain bloomed hot and silent in my chest, twirling away from my center in tendrils. I raised a bloody hand to my breast and felt the ragged emptiness there.
My heart, then.
I lay both hands on my heart, lying silent and still on the table in front of me. I picked it up, soft and light as a dove. My fingers ran over the grooves and cupped it's curving arches, traced it's fleshy exterior.
I saw the malignancy inside. The trapped and glistening blue black of sickness. The bitterness, entrapped in the flesh. I dug my thumbs in. I worked at the mass with desperate intent as pain touched me. My body begged for the return of it's heart, agonizing ropes of feeling pulling at my lips.
I wanted to scream. I didn't. I dug my fingers in deeper, tearing tender flesh. Blood bloomed again and again. My vision was scarlet stained.
A voice.
I did not look up. I knew who stood there.
I bent again to my task, my hair tangled about my face, pooling in the blood.
A hand in my field of vision. I jerked away.
I didn't want to let go. This was mine, this pain. Mine to keep, mine to remove.
Mine.
A hand on my head, the touch as warm as fire. Comforting. I hunched, cold and still over my burden. I held on with two hands to my wound, though I was bleeding.
Two hands closed over mine. They held mine as softly as air. His hands became stained as well. I tried to protest, to pull them away. But He held firm.
"Not just yours." He said.
My hands opened, the small bird of my heart sitting cold within. Drained of life, it was an empty stone. Darkness massed inside. I tired to cover it with my thumbs. His touched brushed them away.
"I see it."
He touched the dark mass. Under his fingers it rose like a flower, pushing from it's prison. It bloomed under his touch, becoming more than it was. He shaped it, slowly as I watched. Smoothed it over as it rooted deep again.
Blood flowed. Scarlet and magenta and onyx entwined. The mass of bruised and battered pain settled like a night blooming flower. It became part of my flesh.
He held my heart, smoothing his thumbs over it. His fingertips grazed every surface. My hands fell away.
I looked up only once, as he gently tucked away my burden. My chest rose and fell as my hand felt what had been ragged.
Smooth unblemished skin. A steady bump of life beneath.
I opened my lips to speak. Words failed beneath the kindess of his face.
My hand remained against my chest, over what had been. Over the healed pain. Over the brokeness.
Once upon a bowl, there was a daddy.
He felt all alone.
His wife felt alone too.
She took care of the babies alone.
Went places alone
She tried to explain to the children that daddy had a disorder.
Daddy was sad.
And cold, too.
Until one day, the daddy drove himself to the hardware store and got wheels for his potty!
And voila! Now he could join his family for birthday parties!
He could read his daughter a bedtime story- "What exactly IS irritble bowl syndrome?"
And then he could lay down his tired head. Well, kinda.
Neither one was lonely anymore. And so what if they had to wear lotsa perfume to hid the stench, they were together.
Daddy could even work!
And watch his favorite shows!
Mommy even convinced him to do dishes.
He took the kids to the park!
And joined them on family outings
A happy family is one that can be together!
