Stratis De Cepa ; Unpeeling Onions

 

If you asked me to explain how each breath I take feels,  I would start with the sadness. I would speak of the constant ache in my heart, one whose cause I can not trace,

Then I would speak about my eyes that never dry up, the stealth drops of water from the pool in my sockets, I would speak of the times that I have choked on my own breath, in the company of friends as I laughed about "mistakenly" choking on my saliva when I knew the truth, I knew what it really was, I knew it was the very thing that gives my life that has sought my end.  I would look into your eyes and if it seemed like you were scarred I would laugh and call it a joke. I would say to look at me, "Does it seem that someone with as many laughs as I have could possibly live a life so heart-wrenching", if you believed me, our conversation would end there and I would not blame you, for choosing to hear what you wanted to, for pretending that you couldn't see your reflection in the sea that rested in my eyes.

However, if you did not believe me and you still wanted to know,  I would tell you of the first time the girl in the mirror was not me, when I felt like an imposter in the very flesh I was living in.  I would tell you of my mother, and the first time I heard her weep, and that the reason she wept was because of me. Then I would tell you of all the multiple ways I have been a disappointment to myself, That the cross I lay on, I dug the nails in my palms, I bound my own feet and I carried it on my back to the place it hangs; nailed to it. Then I would tell you of my dreams,  that some nights I am at a graveyard and I nail a coffin, scared I would walk over to open it, dreading who I would see there but each time I saw myself,  I would heave a sigh of relief.

Then I would tell you about love, and all the love I have pent in me. I will tell you of the old people I sat with at a cafe, strangers I was connected to, the ones who watched me with a bright smile as I spurn my yarn nervously, and every time I would see them afterward they would treat me with warmth,  like comfort food in peak winter.  I would tell you of the people I see, the mother and father bidding their son goodbye with a long hug as I sat in the darkness watching them with laughter on their faces, I wished that nothing would take it away from them. I will tell you of the black furs on the clothes I wear, a reminder of passionate rubs from a creature with no wisdom as a man,  I would show you the random scratches I have on my hands, keepsakes of love permanent on me. 

If you looked at me with wonder, marveled that yet I could feel love,  I would tell you to look into my eyes and the bedrock that carries the river, and you would see all the people I have ever loved. You would see my friends, Past and present, and the laughter we shared, the moments in time, where everything was still and our smiles were all that mattered.  You would see Christmas, all the good ones,  with my mother, father, and siblings eating a naked cake, and arguing over who gets the wings of the roast; I would be a child in all of them. The first time I hugged the lover of my dreams would come into the screen, and you would see the blurring colors of his shirt that I begged him so desperately for and maybe you would remind me of what it truly looked like. You would see the nights that we spent in the company of each other where all that mattered was the pleasure we basked in. Then the first time I lay on quartz sand with the stars shining brightly above, tracing constellations as my mind wandered distantly to the possibility of a stranger sharing the exact moment with me, would come into play. You would see the hours I spent by the sea with my journal keeping me company as I gazed upon all the love around me;  two friends entranced in a game of cards, one sister taking her brother to watch turtles at night,  a girl celebrating her birthday surrounded by all her friends, two budding teenagers play a game of tag as fate draws them closer,  a mother cheers her son with her daughter to be,  two buzzcuts wrapped tightly on a sofa made out of raffia,  a philosopher singing his thoughts and the warm tones of guitar strings with beer as a company.  

Maybe it would overwhelm you, and you would be without words to convey your thoughts on how someone could carry such sadness and profound love without being crushed. I would look at you and laugh because you had yet to see all the different bits of the breath I take. I was yet to show you the anxiety, the fear,  the happiness, the kindness, the peace.  I would give you a moment of respite and you would ask me why my love included the past and the present, I would tell you that I was all the pieces of those who I have loved, just because it is now my past does not take away the fact I once lived it;  so my breath has all I have ever loved, just as it has my anger, my grief, joy, torment, relief and peace.

The Connoisseur