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21. train ride to freedom, some can catch others cannot
There had been times in the street, after a weekend or a few days together, where we couldn't separate. Whilst inside myself I felt the rage of parental abandonment. There was the sensation of oncoming death, of it moving towards me from a great distance, when really it was me that moved towards it. This cut a path between us. It worked us apart like scissors, spreading us as wide as oceans. There was nothing to flee and nothing to fight. I often waited outside Frazer's house inside my car, hopeless and weary with my head on the steering wheel, knowing that each time I left him, I would be aware of this huge time and that cutting distance. Time in the small measure of minutes and streets, and then in the larger days and suburbs, until finally we were years and cities apart. Then the immense departure from our own bodies, where we wouldn't know whether we would meet again, or even whether we would be again or not. This was the price for romantic love's miserable attachment, or in fact attachment to anything at all. The distance would always seem huge, as we moved full steam ahead like trains and bullets. Anything could happen in that time and space between us. One or the other could be killed. Or life could suddenly change direction, and all that the other could do was catch a fast train to keep up. I knew that I could keep up if he caught the good train. But he spent his time hopping on and off broken-down boxcars. I secretly knew that when I caught a train, it would be shiny silver and as fast as a bullet. I knew that Frazer was set in his ways and would never keep up. I knew that when I put out my arms, I would not even be strong enough to lift him up with me. I had hoped I would be strong enough to lift everything onto that train, such as all the life in the world that surrounded me. But my child's arms were not strong enough to lift on the parents who couldn't be saved. I knew that I would be battling his own forces that tied him to his situation, even whilst his eyes were begging me to help him. Frazer's pleading eyes were occupied by the very same forces that would be dragging me back down into his worlds. He secretly wanted me to stay down there with him, so that he could crush me beneath his shoes in order to catch the train himself. Then it would be up to the crumpled me to get up onto that train, as he wasn't strong enough to lift anything on there with him. After all, he had barely been able to take the ride himself. All his strength and energy had been redirected into crushing me. All the goodness was oozing out of him until only weakness was left. He always saw me as strong. But rather than learning from my strength, he began to crush and grab on. He wanted us to change positions. He wanted to use me as his stepping stone and give out nothing in return. All his energy was really being put into saving himself. This is the very reason why he was in fact destroying himself. Love isn't selfish, but hatred is. Frazer did not trust and was frightened of being taken for a ride. He saw me as the dark ghost train that his parents had become, leading him into the tunnels of oblivion, instead of that newer shiny silver one. But I only wanted us to ride through the tunnel of love. Each time Frazer went psychotic it was never me he was really lashing out at. I had disappeared to be replaced by all his monsters that were eating him alive. He must have been strong to survive them all these years. But he never gave himself credit for this strength. I wondered if by being a chain smoker, he wasn't really trying to smoke them out of himself, as he turned back and forth, from treasure to trash. I said to him, 'I love you and want you to be successful. The more successful you are, the happier I am'. But already my happiness was becoming dependent on his own. Then he got into a real nasty mood as trash. He said, 'I'm going to have the best years of your life, and then when you're all decrepit and fucked up, no other man will want you. Then I'll leave you for someone else'. A dry emptiness lodged itself in my throat, as tears not cried. In this statement Frazer's intentions came forth like poison, straight from the pit of dark truth. I saw the intentions of every unfaithful man who intentionally used up women's lives, often the mothers of their children. Then when they felt like it, they followed their testicles to younger versions of these same women. It was simply like trading in an older car for a newer model. I had allowed myself to believe that testosterone made men dumb, irresponsible and stupid. But never had I heard it said with more malice or intent. I said, 'No you won't, because I'm going to leave you before you do that'. He smiled. 'I've already had your early twenties.' I said, 'No you haven't. I've had my whole life. No one else has had it but me'. So the conversation went arctic. Snow is the great purifier. I was entering my second ice age since being on earth. The empty threats both claiming self defence against the other. Mostly it was me trying not to let him crush me down, in order to ride that train, to what he thought would be his own freedom. He would be like the crim that escapes with the loot from the bank after shooting the cop. I would be like the cop, that shot in the chest, miraculously survives, to hang onto the side of the train, then, incredibly strong, comes back from the dead in order to continue the pursuit. Both characters unknowingly working for the same corrupt system. Because the loot he carried was not money or diamonds. It was the love that he had inside that he was unwilling or unable to share. I believed that it was like a secret stash, that he would never be able to share, in much the same way as he never had the right ticket for the train. I was not easily crushed. If he did manage to do some damage to me, he would be so weak that he wouldn't have the energy required to hold on. I knew that as the ride became rockier and rockier, he would inevitably fall off. These action cartoon encounters were not good for the well-being of the world, or either of us. |
