Steel wool

I stood cold on the break wall last night letting the frigid night air seep into me through my coat and through my skin. I stared out into the blackest parts of the horizon. The white clammy waves were laid out in front of me and diminished to nothing in the distance and the darkness. And the harsh wind bit my face and tugged my coat. I was motionless to any observer, but there were none, it was too cold, and too damp, and too bleak. No happy people would be there...only dark sad people full of yearning, and churning, and burning might come. But it was me, and me alone that night. I wondered how many other sad souls might be in other places around the world looking at their own black horizon and for a moment I allowed myself to imagine I was the only one. I knew I was lying but it was easy to do there in that place. Self pity is a comforting mistress. She caresses your heart like the mermaids song.

I wanted to roll around in my pain...bath myself in my self absorbed heartbreak. I wanted to jump in the lake and shatter myself into a billion fractured pieces like hot glass tossed into cold water. I wanted the angry boil, and hot sizzle, and rush of steam, and the sudden crack. I wanted answers...no, mostly I just wanted the questions to go away. If the answers were to ever come they would be cruel and unsatisfying leaving the questions to scream inside my head forever, silenced only in death...maybe. And standing there I felt as if someone had stuffed steel wool into my chest and hooked electricity to it, sending tremors out to the farthest parts of my body, tensing every muscle and vibrating my skin, trembling my fingers, twitching my eyes, cramping my gut. And the steel wool was abrasive and rubbed my heart raw. And I pleaded and prayed for it to go...but no, that's not the nature of pain. Pain goes where it will, when it will with no influence from beggars or pontiffs.

And I wish I could write a beautiful and eloquent ending. One that would give me resolve, port the ship, end the voyage...allow me to disembark and in the mix make a good story. But that would be a sailors tail...fiction. I am too small to write that, my strength too broken, my mind too weak, my heart to adrift. And so I can only say, I simply turned and headed for home.