I’ve always said the heart wants what it wants, there’s no use fighting it, and I’ve never been proven wrong yet. I would know – for better or worse, I followed my heart all the way to Colombia, South America only to come home with lice because the room where I had slept for a week had a carpet that was infested with them. The adage “lie down with dogs” comes to mind now but didn’t then.
That
was my souvenir of chasing the tall dark stranger I’d fallen madly in love
with. Itching and scratching the whole
way back to Kennedy Airport, I swore never to see him again. The minute I crossed my own threshold, I
began ripping off my clothing layer by layer.
As I soaked in a tub of hot water with baking soda and apple cider
vinegar, I cursed the day I set on eyes on him.
Nevertheless,
the decade that began with my self-destructive co-dependency ended while
dragons still needed to be slayed one by one.
Even now, years later, it pains me to recall that journey through the
murky waters of love’s dark tunnel. Was
it an adventure that drew me? From my
present vantage point I know better, but a defiant dangerous desire distilled
the draft from which I drank so deeply.
The
dark knight whose eyes like burning black coals enticed me was just a mirror
where all my heart’s chipped cracks and sharp edges were reflected. Could anything or anyone have deterred
me? Never. The game of cat and mouse left no space for
anything or anyone else. I call this my
near-death and born-again experience all rolled up in one. All life dawns in pain’s aftermath.
Yvonne A.
Dec. 2020
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