Companionship

Tonight, I have murder on my mind. Maybe it's the late hour, maybe it's my analytical nature, and maybe it's because I've just started season 4 of my favorite crime show, Dexter. In it, John Lithgow plays an eerily calm and nondescript old guy who just happened to pick a woman at a shopping mall... and later murders her. It makes me think of all the shopping malls and all the streets I've walked down, not knowing what sort of creeps are watching me or lurking nearby. Call me morbid or call me realistic- the fact is, our world is dangerous and people are killed everyday. And it's not as if I blend into the crowd very well. Why wouldn't a stranger notice me, pick me, choose me? Why am I not one of the girls in a crime scene photo, flesh slashed to pieces, my life reduced to a file in the Justice Department. What separates me from any of these women, these victims?

Tonight is a night for faith, for feeling safe and protected. But truth is, I don't feel safe and I don't feel right being alone. I'm alone at night far too often. I can't sleep, despite my lack of effort, and it's not just because drunk Londoners are teeming outside my open window. I have a disquieted mind, caused by being too on edge and too in-tune with my thoughts. There are times I wish I could slowly let my consciousness seep from me like air leaking out of a balloon. This is one of those times. My brain is too full from trying to hard, and I don't like being put under this strain. I don't know how I'll continue to manage if I keep being pushed to my breaking point, having to remind myself of my recovery and how I stitched myself up again from the ruin I was. For all the strength that I have, for all the wisdom I've gained over the years, it could all be snatched from me some night with a blade in my back at the hand of a murderer. What's the point, where's the prize in the living of life if death could spring at you at any given moment? I am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of lifting the veil, revealing the secrets the living have pined for for centuries. I am not afraid that there will be nothing; death may be peaceful, black, nothingness- but what does it matter, if we aren't aware of it anyhow?

I can trust in karma, in Buddha, in Gaia, in God, in the spirit of the Universe to save me from dark things, but they cannot grant me pardon forever. I will one day be called and collected for whatever existence lies beyond my mortality. Religions prey upon praying people, looking for absolution from fear. I do not want my fear absolved, I know that steadfastness in the face of such things provides strength. I want company in my wondering, my wanderings, my worries, my woes. I want someone beside me to make the stillness and quiet of night seem all right again. I want not to be alone in the dark when such things make my mind manic with thoughts of things that might be. I want my bed to be warm with the weight of this sort of company. Tonight, my bed is cold and, as of yet, not slept in. And so it will be until I can once again invite you into into my bed, to comfort me and keep me giggling with delight at your tenderness.

I digress into the sort of fantasies that often fill my mind at this time of night.

I've always prided myself on my steel will, my independence, and my ability to pull myself out of whatever troubles I'm in. I've never wanted to share that with anyone before. I've never wanted to give pieces of myself to someone who could use them against me, to anyone who could betray my trust. For all of the words I spit out about trust and about faith in people, I trust sparingly and against my better instincts. Then you came along, and that scares me. It scares me that I can't... no, do not want to comfort myself. I do not want to spend these scary moments alone. I want to spend them with you. And that is a scary moment in and of itself.

I will never be the sort who would willingly commit to one thing for the rest of forever. I don't imagine that changing. I'm too unpredictable, too painfully aware of the shortness of this life and the importance of seeking out the roads upon which you wish to travel. However, on this road at this time, I don't want to walk alone. I want you to walk with me. Our paths might diverge, our futures might split and reverberate the cracks through our hearts. Then again, our road might stretch into unknown places far along the way from this point. All I know is for now, at this time, on this path, in this night I ache for your arms. I am glad that they are open to me for however long we end up walking.