reincarnation

onion skin

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I have had strange, fleeting thoughts lately.

Thoughts of the very first time I successfully meditated alone without getting any side-guidance through my ex.

For at least a month back in 2013, every single night, he had been reading instructions off of the Ouija board to me from “Alex.” Helping me lean into my intuition, showing me how to See.

I still think of that tiny hidden lake, deep in a forest, with a waterfall cascading at the edge. This was the place I had been going to to practice meditation via the board, before I even imagined (or discovered) a beach house.

Up until that moment, Alex himself had appeared as a fuzzy, out of focus image- like a faulty hologram, or a picture on an old television, back when staticky channels still existed. Just the night before, I’d finally been able to conjure his face on my own, and it was the greatest success I’d ever felt.

The waterfall scene was nothing more than the equivalent of a painted backdrop inside my mind, but it was still mine. I created it, totally alone.

And more than that, Alex was there waiting for me. I couldn’t hear him speak- it would be another year or so before that happened. But just to really see him standing there, to be able to believe and know for certain that I saw him, was monumental.

Alex and I sat side by side on the edge of the water for awhile, when I suddenly pushed him into the water. To see if I could. To see what would happen.

When he emerged from the surface, spluttering and shocked, I could see in his face that he was both surprised and impressed. Before I could say anything, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the water with him.

As we swam lazy circles around each other, there was a different look in his eyes. A smoldering desire that held me in his gaze like startled prey. Which, as we all know now, is exactly what I was.

If prey can be grateful at being devoured.

///

I have also been thinking of the time when Alex had been exposed and was on the worst part of his rampage, one that would last for weeks before he was finally captured. When I became the trap that finally tripped him up. 

I was like a ragdoll at the beach house during that time, being dragged there in my mind to be violently assaulted day after day after day. It could happen at any time, for any reason. For no reason.

My oldest friend, someone I had just met at that time, showed up to protect me.

“What is the purpose of these theatrics?” he asked, gesturing to Alex’s hand clamped around my upper arm, my entire spirit slumped in humiliation and defeat next to him. His sweeping arm widened to include the rough seas and furious skies, direct opposition to the normally idyllic scene.

“Oh I am so glad you are here to save the day!” Alex sneered rabidly, his eyes wild with fury.

“Isn’t he your boyfriend now?” he said to me, shaking me by the arm to bring me back out of my (his) trance. “Go on, then. Do what you do best.” With a wave of his hand, he ripped my dress completely off my body.

I stood there, helplessly fumbling with scraps, before I remembered I could create one just as easily as he had destroyed it.

My oldest friend’s gaze never left Alex’s face. “Is this how you treat people you claim to love?” His eyebrow arched in a way I would eventually come to loathe. “Impressive. Why don’t you let her go? If she is so enamored with you, surely there is no reason to hold her.”

His grip on my arm tightened, and he drew me closer to his thin frame. “Why don’t you do something about it? I would love to see that.”

“I think you know that I can.” My oldest friend’s voice was calm, but his amber eyes flared with golden flame. “I think you know what will happen if I do.”

Alex threw me to the ground as if I was a pair of uncomfortable shoes, and surged forward to bring his face into the face of someone I was now realizing he knew very well. They were nearly the same height, and their faces together had so much energy it must have been flammable.

“You want to make this about our shit now?” he hissed through his teeth.

That was the beginning.

///

I have been thinking about the time that I found the basement in the basement because of a nightmare I’d had. How I went there in meditation and found myself crammed inside a steamer trunk. Soaked in dried blood, covered in bruises, emaciated, filthy, matted. Naked. Screaming.

Please, please, she wept in a high, thin voice, her eyes not even able to see me. I’ll do anything I’ll do anything. Please please I can’t please don’t please

How my oldest friend showed up without me speaking his name, sweeping her up into a crisp white sheet, pulling her tiny body against his chest. The way his eyes flicked over to mine, searching my face briefly before taking the three of us away from there.

And then, maybe a year later, when it was he and I that were face to face.

“You are a whore,” he snarled in a voice I’d never heard before. “This is what you do. Another little project. And you don’t care about anybody but yourself, as always. Oh no, you claim that you love us, you really promise you do, but…” His mouth tasted lemon. “How can you? How can you love anyone but yourself and the power you hold over us?”

My mouth let out a string of horrible, vicious, crude obscenities. I wanted to be as foul, as disrespectful, as blasphemous as possible. It was all I could think to do- the rest of my entire soul felt like it was falling down, down, down into some kind of putrid abyss.

These days, I am starting to see he may be right.

We didn’t truly speak again for maybe four years. He was never far away, and as he promised me in 2010, if I ever called for him out of fear or desperation, he always showed up and was kind and respectful. But I’d fall asleep instantly, sucked into a charybdis of emptiness.

He couldn’t wait to get away from me.

///

I think about him as well. My biggest secret, the one I’ll probably never speak out loud. The first time I realized the truth from the way I caught him looking at me, when he didn’t think I could see.

Up until that point he had been another guardian, a point of counsel, and a source of extremely raw and brutal feedback. The kind of truth that cuts like a scalpel on your ego.

It is hard to reconcile that as well. Someone who should be a stable force, a truly exceptional example, suddenly becomes erratic, furious, demanding, desperate.

There is an intensity between us that feels like profound love and electric anger and a heavy, wistful melancholy. It is ancient. We have loved each other so many ways, and it has never been enough.

When he laughs, his head tips back and you can see all of his teeth. It feels like a rare jewel to see it- he is so serious, solemn, austere. To be able to give him joy, rest from his burden, feels like the greatest success one can achieve. But to be wholly seen by him feels like being stripped nude on livestream. Bleeding. Raw.

Whenever we have lives together, one of us gets murdered. Usually while the other watches. Our love is eternally doomed. It is searing with fire and soaked in blood. It is clandestine and forbidden.

I am capable of intimacy, I am certain.

I just have to find the ability. The soft, fleshy place I keep revealing to others, only to have them try to plunge their white hot brands into it.

I want to be loved and not possessed. Just once. Just once.

And so… we peel.

apple slice

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I’ve been lost in a fog of head, heart, soul sickness for the last day or so, so I decided to drive to the beach.

It was 42 degrees today, so needless to say, it was ill advised and an extremely short visit, but I needed to get out of the house for a bit. I needed to see my girl.

I know I’m not well when seeing the sea doesn’t even help. I know I’m not well when the only thing I can think as I watch the waves is, “There’s no way you could drown yourself in the winter. You’d never get past the breakers. You’re too weak.”

On the way home, I called out for a friend I only see when things are really bad. Usually, he comes to me, sitting on the edge of my bed as I sob myself to sleep, when I’m in the dark dark. He’s my often silent reminder that I don’t want to give up, not yet. Even if I can just make it one more day, it will be a win.

He’s also a blunt, sarcastic person, and I am used to jabbing, jeering jokes from him most of the time. This time, he seemed concerned as he appeared in my passenger seat.

“What’s going on?” he asked, searching my face. “Are you all right?” I felt him dip in and out. “No. You’re not.”

“I don’t know, man,” I sighed. “I …” One of my favorite things about talking in meditation is that we are able to speak in visuals and emotions, and I gave him a burst of what I’d been processing. “And I guess I’m just… like, not okay.”

“Of course you’re not okay,” he said. “Are you serious?”

“I mean, first of all, these horrible images I’ve been seeing recently. I don’t understand the purpose behind it, you know? Why do I have to keep looking at it?”

He nodded. “Listen, it’s horrible, and I get it. But do you understand that like… that really happened? And you’re allowed to feel terrible trauma and terror and disgust about it. I mean, I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. It’s not… insignificant, to say the absolute least. You cannot deny it. You cannot diminish it. Not if you ever want to move past it. And I know it’s horrible, but if you’re still seeing it, you’re not done with it.”

“So why is she still with him?” I cried desperately. “How can she be?”

His head tipped thoughtfully to one side. “I mean, she… doesn’t really give a fuck about anyone, including you.” Then he hesitated, combing back through his words. “No, that’s not right. She does care about people. Intensely. But no one can tell her a single damn thing. She does whatever she wants.” He gave me a sly side-eye. “Sound familiar?”

I laughed with concession. “But like… I just. I can’t get over it. To see that, and know it doesn’t matter to her?”

“To her, it’s theatre. You are ‘just’ a human. You’re like, a single apple slice, and she’s the other three-quarters of the fruit. Your suffering is not significant to the goal she’s trying to achieve. I mean… you’re not the only one who is confused by it, but think about how aggressive you are about your goals in this life. She is…” He smiled a little and tipped his head again. “She doesn’t fail. That’s for sure.”

I smiled softly. “Yeah.”

He sat quietly, letting me rummage through my thoughts before I finally said, “Okay but like, it is hard to not want to be here at all, but to also know that no one wants me Over There. It’s so fucked up to think that no one even wants me in Our Home. In the place we all belong. Like, I-“

“Who said that?”

“Everyone!” I cried. “Ya’ll are always saying, ‘Oh you don’t want to come here, there’s so much drama and everyone is so angry.'” I cut my eyes to the passenger seat, as if he was really sitting there. “You specifically have said that.”

He laughed a little. “Okay. That’s fair. But let me point out two things. One- and I know I’ve also said this to you as well, many times- you will be so angry at yourself if you quit. You came here for a reason, and everything you’re working on both there and here will be entirely disrupted if you opt out.

“Second, I want you to also fully recognize that you will be angry at others when you get here. I think people have you convinced that you’re about to be interrogated and vilified when you get here for all of your misdeeds, as if you’ve been suddenly revealed to be the murderer in a horror movie.”

He looked over at me, his blue eyes lit up with intensity. “Understand that your life has been fucking violated, Kristyn. You know so much more than you should know. You are involved in so much shit in this life that you shouldn’t even be aware of. It’s so fucked up, it’s so so fucked up.”

He reached across the center console to grab my knee as I drove. “Do not let anyone convince you that they are blameless in this scenario. No one is without fault. And you are absolutely welcome to come Home. So many of us cannot wait for you to be here, okay? Please do not feel like you would not be wanted.” He squeezed my knee. “I personally cannot wait to see you. Okay?”

My mouth pulled to one side, neither smile nor frown. “But it just seems like… like [my oldest friend] looks at me like I’m an addict. Like all I do is siphon from him.”

He laughed out loud now, clapping his hands together. “Oh, Kristyn. Do not for one second let him make you feel any kind of way about yourself or your decisions. Not now as Kristyn, and not as Hermie either. He has fucked up so much this time around with you, and so much of his behavior is a reflection of judgement on himself.”

“But he’s like… important. He is…”

“He’s a miserable do-gooder,” he sniped with a scowl. “I mean, you probably get to see a lighter, softer side than the rest of us, but mostly, he is… not fucking fun. At. All.”

Then he waved a hand as if swatting a fly, possibly hearing something I couldn’t. “Okay, that’s not necessarily fair either. He is very good. He does not break the rules. In fact, he only breaks them when it comes to you.” He shrugged a little. “And even then? When I say that he ‘fucked things up’ for you… even saying that is so funny really because it’s like, ‘He consensually and without manipulation slept with his oneuponawife, the person who has known him longest and loves him the most?’ That’s his scandal?

He leveled his gaze at me. “He was never inappropriate while you were married. You have a few moments a year when he comes to visit. And even that is too inappropriate for him.” He held up his hands, eyes wide. “The scandal of it all. And yet, for him? It is. It actually really is.”

His eyes twinkled a little. “She exposed them both. I know it was horrible for you, but man…” He shook his head with a small, smothered laugh. “She’s… she doesn’t fucking lose, man. She is a real power player. I know people telling you that she’s ruthless makes you cringe, but I think it’s impressive. She is relentless. She cannot be defeated.”

He shot me another side-eye. “And then on the other side of that, let’s be honest- being good is boring. No one wants to say it, but it is. It means always being The Example. It means being judged to the highest degree. It is absolutely the level anyone should want to attain, but the cost is enormous.”

He smiled a knowing smile, a commiserating smile. “And Alex is fun. Alex makes you feel like you’re smarter and cooler and braver than anyone in the Universe when you break rules with him. It’s an electric adventure. Everyone has fun with him.” He winced a little, the conciliatory way his (current and former) loved ones all share. “Until you don’t.”

I focused my gaze on the road. “So… what about me?”

He grinned slyly. “You’re like you are now, mostly. Sometimes you’re a fucking ton of fun to be with- trouble, mischief, danger, adventure, hysterical laughter. And sometimes… you’re not. Cold, dark, empty, sad, listless, broken, mean.” He shrugged a little. “But I like it. It’s what I appreciate about you. You have The Balance. Honesty is a deeply underestimated gift. You’re extremely fucking real. That’s a superpower.”

I dipped my head shyly, and another long pause passed between us.

“And… Jim?” I winced, afraid to know. “What is the deal with that?”

He took a long, slow breath in and released it. “Well. I mean. Here’s the thing- and you know this about yourself- she’s super secretive. She’s holding a lot of cards right now. But if you are asking if she loves him? Yes. Absolutely.”

I shrugged. “It just seems like… I dunno. Like everyone says she’s ‘ruthless’ and just… all this with Jim has been described to me as a kind of manipulation. I’m really worried I’m going to break his heart. I’m worried she doesn’t give a fuck about him.”

He smiled softly. “She does. I promise you, I know that for sure. And Jim knows what this is. He knows that there is a very real chance that you get here and go back to all this drama you three love so much.” His mouth twisted, and his eyes did one hard roll to the edge of his vision and back. “But it also doesn’t change how she feels about him, or how you feel about him. This is a forever bond. Please don’t continue to beat yourself up for this.”

He reached over again, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I know you have this idea that you are some kind of… villain, and I don’t know why you feel that way. You’re listening to the wrong people. You should listen to Jim.” He tipped his head again, this time with a wink. “And you should obviously listen to me.”

He leaned in a little. “Do you understand the level of success you have had in your life?” He gestured to the beach houses rushing by us. “I know you’re looking at this and thinking it is success, but are you willing to be the person you’d have to be to achieve this?”

“No.”

“No. So look at your life, Kristyn. You are powerful, confident, respected, loved.” He gave me another side-eye. “And I think if you’d ask the people who love you to express that to you, they would. Gladly. It’s okay to need to be loved. It’s okay to ask to be loved. It’s okay that when you’re thirsty, you ask to be watered.” He nudged me gently. “Right?”

I wavered, my entire body playfully cringing to one side. “Ehhhhhh…..”

Right.

We’re still learning.

enabler

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Two nights ago, I spent the night with my oldest friend at the beach house. It was one of those times where I honestly wished I was able to write down our conversation in the moment, because I really got so much out of what we were talking about, and I only remember the things we discuss when I’m there. As soon as I am fully “awake” again, it all slips away.

The hardest lesson to learn in meditation- once you get past just learning how to go to the Silence and allow your thoughts become a stream- is how to accept visuals as they come to you. I’m not sure that everyone who is deep in the mystic world has the same elaborate second life that I do, but I don’t see why you couldn’t if you wanted to.

Then again, most people are not as actively pursued as I am. Most people do not have this much interference. Most people have dead lovers who stay dead, and don’t try to bleed into your current living life.

Anyway, he and I were in bed together and suddenly, I became Hermie (my Entire Self, the person I primarily present as on The Other Side). I think some part of our conversation triggered this transition, but I can’t recall what led up to it, except for the moment when I suddenly blended into her.

She’s beautiful like the freshly polished edge of a knife. Like the ripple of muscle across a panther’s back as it paces. Like the delicate fracture on the side of a building after an earthquake. Like the vivid depth inside the shade of newly spilled blood.

I am her, and I’m afraid of her.

He pulled back suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at the sudden appearance of her face. “What is this?”

She reached up to lay her hand on his cheek. “I just wanted to see you. I wanted to see how you looked at her. How you used to look at me.” Her thumb stroked across his cheek, her hand sliding around the back of his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers.

He kissed her back for a moment, then pulled away again, his eyes scouring hers. “What’s going on, though? What did he do? Are you in trouble? Did something happen? What is…”

“No! It’s nothing,” she insisted, reaching up to pull him close again. “I just wanted to see you.” Her eyes burned into his for a heavy, desperate moment before she leaned her lips up to his again.

The moment their mouths even briefly brushed together, she started inexplicably sobbing. So did I, in fact. The weight of it was so abruptly enormous that I was crying before I even realized it. It was like a brief thunderstorm, bone deep sobs that shook my entire body for about thirty seconds, then it passed back to blue skies, pulling hands, an aching mouth.

Instead of being sympathetic, my oldest friend appeared even more suspicious. He stared at her, me, her/me with his mouth drawn in a mix of empathy and exhaustion. But he stopped asking questions, and it wasn’t much longer afterwards that I fell asleep wound tight around all my pillows, crushing them against me as if I might mine warmth from their centers.

Yesterday morning, especially after binging all of Euphoria, I realized that he looks at me like I’m an addict. Like he expects me to ask him for money. Sell him on a hustle. Weave him a desperate fable. The exhaustion of my constant, unpredictable swings of behavior was easily visible in his eyes.

But certainly, if I am an addict, he is my enabler. The quiet defeat when he looks at me sometimes tells me I have wrung him dry more than once. Everything about me is a strategic move, it seems, and lately I worry genuinely that I have never loved anyone since I’ve existed. Not the kind of love other people talk about.

I really worry about it a lot, actually.

Even in this life, loving me is like trying to hold smoke. Like trying to catch a feral cat. I’m not someone you go to for softness or gentle encouragement. In fact, as soon as I feel like someone cares about me, I get extremely uncomfortable, anxious, suffocated. My eyes start searching for the exit. Oh no, you don’t want this. No… really.

And the harder part is seeing in the eyes of people who have known me longest that I am not entirely wrong to feel that way.

My two favorite words that people often use to describe me are “honest” and “loyal.” That is an enormous compliment to me, but I am also aware, as I have been for many years, that honesty is not a trait that most people value, and loyalty isn’t really the same as love.

The kind of healing I need to do in this life is a sort of ancestral healing, in the sense of my soul being its own ancestor. I have layers of my own personal identity that I desperately need to heal, especially if I am serious about not coming back here again.

There is something about my Entire Self that is treacherous, manipulative, duplicitous, and I have to find a way to repair some of this damage. If I can. Which is why this entire lifetime has been about being made smaller, conquered, disrespected, discarded. Why what I’ve needed to learn is humility, grace, asking for help.

Well. …I’m still learning.

solstice celebrations

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I saw my oldest friend a few nights ago for the first time in awhile, which was a relief. He has seemed to be avoiding me for the last few weeks, so it was good to finally be able to clarify some things face-to-face. Even if, to be honest- he still really avoided giving me a real answer to anything.

This time, he and I sat on opposite diagonal corners of the fully made bed at my beach house, which was both new and awkward. Our palms were resting flat on the on the smooth white comforter, both of us subtly trying to reach for the other without making it seem obvious. The flickering candle next to me in real life matched the setting sun at the beach house, lighting up his silhouette with fire behind my eyelids as I turned to look at him.

“So,” I said, my voice slightly bruised. “Where have you been?”

His mouth pulled to one side, and his golden brown eyes briefly flashed with defiance. “Well- and I know this is hard to believe- but I have other responsibilities, people who need my support and guidance and compassion, and also extremely difficult work I have to do for myself.” His voice is somehow both soft and strong, the sound of a summer breeze that carries the threat of a potential thunderstorm. It makes my blood light up with summer sparklers, even when he’s scolding me. Maybe especially then.

He gave me a look that had a tiny slice of that very energy. “You’re not the only person going into the solstice, you know.”

I gave him a hard side-eye. “Okay, but your distance with me kind of seemed to coincide with when Hermie told me that she treats you like a fuckboy. I was just kind of wondering if they were related at all.”

His mouth pulled again, harder. This time, his nostrils flared out as well. “No. They’re not.” His voice was flat and blunt, but then he sighed deeply, conceding a little of the granite in his body language.

“Listen. This is why it is going to be so hard for you to come Home,” he said, his eyes burning into mine. “There is very much a duality at play right now. Do you choose this life, what you have learned, this new perspective?” His eyes shifted away briefly, almost imperceptibly, before flicking back with more intensity than before. “Me? Jim?”

Then he shrugged a little, his entire body once again conceding to the possibility. “Or do you choose… him, and your crusade to save him? Which, to be fair, if you can accomplish it, would be a massive achievement for the entire Universe. But.”

He shook his head a little, laughing to himself. “What he has done to you already? What you have- what she has- allowed him to do to you just to prove that he is a vile and wretched being?” He shrugged again, a kind of angry admiration. “I can’t understand that. You are so much bolder than I could ever be.”

I held my palms to the sky. “But I don’t understand either. How could it even be a choice? It makes no sense.”

He exhaled through his nose, turning to look out at the surf. “I mean, she’s not wrong about me, you know? I have made a lot of mistakes, especially with you.” He turned back to look at me, his eyes swimming with electric fire. “Especially because of him, how you have always protected and defended him.”

“So what happens if I do choose him?” I whispered. “What happens then?”

He smiled wistfully, and his eyes went back to the sea. “It wouldn’t be the first time, my love. We’ll all find a way to move on.” He shrugged, returning his defeated gaze to me. “We all love you enough that we are willing to accept whatever amount of reciprocal love you are willing to…” His mouth twisted a little, his hand gesturing with a sarcastic benevolence. “…bestow upon us.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, okay. Please.”

He finally reached across the bed to slide his fingers between mine. It felt like plugging a cord into an outlet, an energy that is always somehow both brand new and ancient. Our eyes locked, and we just stared at each other for a long time, saying nothing and saying everything.

When he looks at me like that, I know better than to try to argue.

“But like… why did you leave me?” I asked quietly, searching his unbearably familiar face. “You were around so much last month, honestly to the degree that I felt like we were going to get into trouble, and then…?” I held my palms out to him in despair. “You just totally abandoned me.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. There is just so much happening right now, and I’m stretched very thin. It’s the solstice for all of us. It is the Grand Conjunction for all of us. It is 2020 for all of us. Do you think only the living are struggling with this disaster of a year?” He laughed a little, his eyes going smoky amber. “We are all being pushed to our limits.”

Then he tipped his face to me again, and we gazed deeply at each other, searching the other’s face. For what, I’m not sure. Just looking at him for too long makes me feel impossibly nervous, excited, almost as if just sitting next to him is something forbidden. As we looked at each other, the air shooting lightning, he slid slowly across the bed until our hips kissed. My mouth is all he could seem to see.

“I am so in love with you,” he said softly, then immediately scowled with disgust and embarrassment. It was as if his words were aromatically repellent, and he began trying to scoot away to try to escape it. Escape himself.

I grabbed him around the waist, pulling him back to me. “Wait, wait. Say it again.” I coquettishly tipped my cheek towards my shoulder as I batted my eyes, reaching out to grab both his hands.

He laughed the all-teeth, head tipped back laugh that makes all my nerve endings sing with light. Then he reached over and his knuckles grazed across my jaw, his fingers curling around my ear. As his fingertips slid into my hair, sending tiny explosions through my brain, he said, “I am so in love with you. It makes me worry that I shouldn’t be here.” He pulled his hand back and peered into my face. Eyes like a lion, a falcon. “I don’t want to distract you from the life you’re living.”

“What life?” I scowled. “Please.”

“Stop it.” He grabbed my chin gently to pull my eyes back to his. Then he proceeded to pour out truth to me, things I agreed not to write publicly, things that I honestly wouldn’t even dream of sharing, because it all feels exceptionally foolish. To the point of delusion.

When I expressed this to him, he said, “You’ll listen to every other thing I say, but when I tell you about who you really are, suddenly you must not have any real ability to hear?” He smiled. “Okay. Let it just be your imagination, then. Let it be who you wish that you were, the person you would like to be. Let it be the dream that propels you into a new reality.”

It feels impossible to carry both of my lives at the same time anymore. It feels harder and harder to pretend. It also feels deeply terrifying to lean more fully into who I actually am. This blog is the most honest thing I’ve ever done, and the most visibility I’ve ever given to my actual reality. I don’t have to be ashamed here. I don’t have to lie. No one is watching. I’m free to just flourish in this strange, beautiful, divine Light.

Happy (almost)solstice, ya’ll.

May we all see ourselves with clarity, and may we also be able to speak upon it with bravery. xx

her/me

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In 2010, I developed the ability to see myself in third person in meditation. I’m not sure if it’s a skill others have, or would even want to have. Mine came about because of the degree of violation and trauma I had to deal with that only I knew about or could explain… and also because I was being held accountable for her behavior in those years, things I didn’t even know were happening.

Once Alex was gone completely, pulled out of me (by myself) that summer, I met her for the first time. I was separated from my ex, and she gently tried to get me to be brave enough to leave him.

I wasn’t strong enough. I wish I had listened to myself that summer, that I had been able to stand on my own two feet. In fact, it would take three more years to finally have a spine again.

The way I see her- and what I think is her/our Home form- is of a slender, lithe woman with olive skin and a shining mane of dark hair. Her eyes are wild, glittering with violence, like Villanelle in Killing Eve. She stares at you as if she is weighing your flesh. She looks tired of your life, like your breath is a burden on her.

Our eyes are the same color. They always are, from what I understand.

After what I saw in meditation the last time- she and Alex (not his real name, as I feel occasionally compelled to express) together in their little love nest- I needed to speak to her.

Her. Me. Her/me. Hermie. I dealt with her a great deal in 2011 and 2012, but not much since then. To be honest, I spent the following years trying to pretend none of that happened, desperate to believe I was never that “insane.”

But we all know I’m insane now, so.

We met at The Midpoint, my neutral place- a field full of lush green grass, sometimes filled with some flowers, but always with a shallow, crystal clear stream burbling through the center.

With our feet in the water, I turned to stare at her in disbelief.

“So you’re like… with him?”

She sighed. “I mean. It’s hard to explain. First of all, it keeps him away from you, which is what you have said you want. Secondly, I’m not just going to give up on him, okay? We are working hard to try to make him better. And you understand and accept that this is part of our plan.” Her tone was annoyed, not comprehending or allowing my admonishment.

“But like… how can you just… sacrifice me? Do you understand what you did to my life?”

Her emerald eyes looked flat, blank, and she regarded me like a puddle of waste dripping from a summer dumpster. “I don’t understand. Are you fine now or…?”

My eyebrows bounced in shock. “Oh. Okay. Wow.”

She arched hers back at me and said nothing. Defiant. Uninterested.

After a long moment of silence, I said, “So nothing that I am experiencing now matters to you? What about [our oldest friend, the one who took me to the house to show me this foolishness]?”

She chuckled with a sharp edge of bitterness. “It’s all fresh to you. He is…” She laughed again, almost to herself, shaking her head. “Look. You’re a person, so I get it. You’re swept away in the fable. Ooh, ahh.” She waved her hands as if she was casting a spell, then laughed one more time, darker. Nastier.

“He’s not the person you imagine he is. I mean, look at how he’s behaved with you in this life.” She gave me a hard side-eye, and I acknowledged her with a small nod.

“So… what about Jim?” I asked, tentatively.

She sighed and wouldn’t meet my eyes, offering a half-hearted shrug.

“Oh man,” I snapped. “Seriously?”

“He’s nice, okay?” she replied irritably, her eyes arcing electricity. “And I’m grateful for what he’s done for you. I have a great deal of tenderness for him. He’s doing a lot of really great work right now, and …” she held her palms out. “I mean, we’ll see what happens. It’s just…”

“‘It’s not like what WE have,‘” I sneered at her. “Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

“You don’t get it,” she said dismissively. “And I know you’ve heard that before too, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Do I love Jim? Sure. But am I also involved with real work with the person you know as Alex? Absolutely. And I am very committed to that right now.”

I threw my hands up, baffled. “So why come here to Earth? Why now?”

She shrugged. “I mean… I didn’t know he’d die. I wanted a chance to live a ‘clean’ life, one without his interruptions. For once.”

“So did you know … like, when he died?”

She arched her brow at me again, observing me with amused irritation. “Did we not find out immediately, and have an enormous, bizarrely deep reaction to it? To the degree that we stopped listening to his music for years?”

Then she held up her hands defensively- a brief moment of concession. “Listen- what has happened here is… not normal. Obviously. Most people don’t have to split in half just to be able to work through something this vile. You’re lucky to not remember most of what happened.” She shook her head gently, like a weary parent. “Stop trying. There’s nothing you will gain from seeing any of what your brain allowed you to lose.”

“And again… you’re okay with that?” I was grazing the edge of appalled, and I could tell my face showed it.

Her mouth pulled hard into a sneer. Furious, even more defiant than before. “And again.. you are fine, right? You lived? You are recovered? You are the most powerful and confident you’ve ever been, living what I see is a lovely, successful, content life?”

I put my hand up and gave her a hard glare. “Hang on. I can’t have intimacy with anyone but the dead, I either sabotage or back away from all friendships, and I’m a fucking retail manager. Of all fucking things.”

Now her entire face twisted into an ugly, disgusted expression. She waved both hands at me dismissively, as if I was a foul scent she could push off. “Oh, please. Give me a break. Don’t pretend you don’t know who you are. Retail manager.”

She rolled her eyes. “You have seen who you are and what you can do. Two of the most powerful souls in this Universe are obsessed with you to the point of ruining your life, and to be honest? We treat them like fuckboys.” She shrugged dismissively. “So don’t be foolish.”

“So you’d rather fuck around with a demon than the other one?” I barked. “I just don’t understand.”

“He’s not a demon, okay?” she snapped. “That’s fucking crude. Demons are worthless. They’re pawns. That was all for show, okay? It was part of his strategy, and it was successful.” Her mouth turned again. “But we were much more successful, and though he exposed a great deal, we have exposed him even more.”

She pressed her palms together, as if trying to hold her patience together. “You don’t understand. You will. Please just worry about yourself.”

“Really? The teeth, the eyes, the cheekbones…”

“Oh my God,” she growled. Her eyes were practically black. “Everyone makes it more serious than it is. It was a charade, okay? You’re fine. You survived. It proved a point to him. It’s a catalyst for his change.”

My eyes were huge. “Oh… kay? Wow. You’re really… invested in this, I see.”

She shrugged dismissively, and I fell asleep.

How do you forgive your own soul when it sacrifices you and isn’t sorry?

the nothing in the everything

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Too old to follow the rules and too tired to keep breaking them. The ennui of causing all the trouble you’ve ever desired, to dare to dance with demons just to feel alive again.

How many years is my sentence? How much penance must be paid before the debt is clear?

You can’t earn your way into grace, and some of us will never be fully brought back into the light again.

Some are the living examples, the reasons why you stay in line. Nearly everyone, no matter how wild you may have been, finds a way into the queue.

And when you refuse?

No one is marking your growth when you are a marked woman. No one watches the wisps of birthday candle smoke once the wish has been made. No one is worried about the strain on the yoke, just the yield of the harvest.

Imagine if you solved the puzzle, and when you showed it to others, they set it on fire and then slit your throat over the ashes. Over and over.

How many times do you go gracefully into the light before you wonder if it isn’t better to sow the darkness?

Midnight in a soul can last a week, a month, a year. A lifetime? An infinity? What if you have broken so many rules that even the Universe stops loving you?

I know what you can carry, It says. But maybe It doesn’t. Maybe you’re the experiment to see the limit.

How many ways can a soul break?

.

When people talk to my Entire Self, they regard her/him like a panther. Cagey, anxious, tremulous, narrow-eyed. S/he cannot be trusted- notoriously mercurial and violent, a perfect vision of the childish fits befitting a Greek myth.

My love is the capriciousness of the incoming tide, and we are all at its mercy.

Every time I try to come here to learn to be softer, kinder, and every time I come here, I receive endless abuse, violence, shame.

I am discarded. I fall in love with ghosts, both living and dead.

Those that love me cannot truly reach me, stretching desperate hands into the damp, putrid well where I live.

Please come into the sun. Look at yourself in the light.

But when you know that you were not built for love, when you know that clouds will obscure the sun when you attempt to walk into its light, what is the purpose of being more accessible?

Time has taken everything but granite and lightning.

When a plate breaks too many times, the pieces are too pulverized to be placed together again.

I am the gaps in the whole. I am the void in the substance. I am the nothing that makes the everything.

.

I rage at the moon because she is a reflection of what I know is also true about me- I am just a mirror of the light. I hold none of it, and my dark side is too cold for life. For a few brief hours I catch a bit on my face, a slice that diminishes daily.

Every wax, I am sure it is my time to be seen, but the wane comes and takes it all again.

To cling to a pillow and wail, “Be real! Just be real!” But no warmth ever comes. No soft hands. No gentle mouths.

Real and not real. Whole and empty.

And that is the best love I’ve ever had in this life.

Another dark, beautiful joke. Exactly what I deserve. Loved and not loved. Only the dead can keep me alive.

It’s all a dream. And when you are just a dream, how long before your substance fades?

snippets from the past

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It’s hard when the same loop has run for years, and I can’t seem to get any further information. I’ve seen it all before, so many times over, and still it claws to escape.

Grabbing people by the shirt and slitting their throats, stabbing their hearts, throwing them to the ground like trash. get the fuck out of my way

Falling to the dirt with my fists pressed against my teeth. oh no oh no oh no his face his face his beautiful face

The smell of jasmine across a rooftop still warm from the sun, my heart pounding against my ribcage. who am I and how dare I be here now

My hands running over fat heads of wheat, the breeze making them undulate like an ocean as my children run in front of me, squealing and laughing. My heart is so full, I am so in love. this is my best life, I am truly blessed

Being pulled off of a bed by my upper arms, screaming, locked into the dark eyes of a beautiful woman whose gaze tells me she isn’t surprised. Betrayal like a hot coal. how could you? I loved you with my entire self

Coughing blood out of my mouth, reaching with numb hands to clutch onto the person holding me in their arms. I’m going, I’m going, where am I going? no no don’t leave me alone, please don’t leave me alone

Falling over the edge, the wind roaring in my ears. How did this happen? Is this real? falling, falling, falling,

Waves like monsters, rising before my eyes, filling me with ferocious fury. I am ready to battle you, my love. I dare you to try to take me down. We will war to the end. and here we goooooo

Children screaming, “Mama!” Wailing and pleading while the soldiers laugh, pulling out their machetes and unzipping their pants. and I am next, and I am next, and death will be a gift after this

blood spraying into my mouth as I scream

my husband is never coming back, it was all a lie, I am alone and in terrible danger

I could live in this moment forever and ever amen

he is so handsome

she is so beautiful

they are all so ugly

How many times can the Universe kill everyone you love before you are too afraid to curse anyone again? Safer to choose those who would never choose you. Who use you. Because to take the chance to lose everything, to have your love soaked in blood?

I am either dark and infamous, or light and invisible.

After ten years of struggle, I have gone back to being the cellophane dreamcatcher.

The fishing line parachute.

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Q: Why are you cosmically connected to rock stars? Why isn’t it like…Bob from accounting.

 

A: Right?  I know.  Trust me, it bothers me.

My first thought is that it’s to keep me quiet.  Because the minute you mention a famous name, people start to doubt you.  The first time I told the story online, I changed the names of everyone (like I did here), so people would just read the story and not start a “fact-checking session.”  I just needed to get those words out somewhere, to explain what I’d just survived.  Here I did it for legal reasons, because the site is public, searchable, and the last thing I really want is to get snared into a case of slander.

To claim something as crazy as, “Oh I loved this dead guy but also he was a semi-famous musician but also he was a demon,” is like literally the most fucking weird shit anyone can say.  And that’s not even the fucking weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me, so.  It’s very alienating.

But also, maybe it’s like “What Dreams May Come,” where someone comes into my life “dressed” as someone else so I can place a face to the person who has come into my life to help me.  I thought about it obsessively when things with “Alex” first ended, when I wanted to convince myself I was insane.  When believing I’d had a dip into pure psychosis was better than what really happened.

I mean maybe it was never Alex, you know?  Whoever he is is someone that is really, really good at mimicry, so.  I mean there’s a great chance it was only ever a demon, and never Alex at all.  To be honest, that answer hurts so much I can’t think about it being true.  I’ll just wait until I die to find that out, when it won’t matter as much anymore.  It will make watching his soul be destroyed a truly magnificent moment.

But there was a time I really loved him, you know?  There’s a photo series that keeps coming up on another social media site I frequent where he is flirting with whoever is taking his picture and his eyes are dark and mischievous and his smirking mouth makes my heart like a pebble skipping across clear water.  And I just.  I just.

In the early days, we asked Alex if he knew any famous people.  He said that being “famous” is kind of a …. joke over there.  Like it’s something you get teased for.  People only really ever identify you as that person, for better or worse.  So when you’ve had a Really Famous life, you have experiences here AND there that no one else really understands, which creates a little… group.  Clique?

Anyway, he said yeah, of course he knew people who are recently dead and famous musicians.  He had a little crew of people he talked to a lot, people we also occasionally talked to (more often whenever Alex became sick and they started to intervene to warn us that he was waaaayyy more ill than we knew).

I honestly think the fact that I know other musicians is really only coincidental, not that I have some kind of cosmic tie to them.  Actually, one of them hasn’t been friends with Alex in a long, long time (pre-Alex) and is only really my friend.  Also I, interestingly enough, am not a fan of his music from this life, though others are.  So I mean…

tl;dr: maybe I am, maybe I’m not.

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Q: What do you think about the notion that we are reunited with our ancestors in the Hereafter? I think it’s probably not true, but I really wish it was. I want to meet them.

A: Okay so here are my thoughts.

I believe in reincarnation because I literally don’t feel like I have a choice, given the things I’ve seen and experienced.  I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie “What Dreams May Come,” but it basically encapsulates my entire belief system.  The person who is your grandmother in this life may have been your daughter in another.  A lover could be a brother could be a father could be a son.  I actually intensely believe that we layer lives with certain people, which is why they feel so familiar.

Have you ever passed someone on the street, locked eyes with them and felt your stomach swoon? I believe in that.  I believe that’s a family member.  It’s someone you used to know and love.

I believe the longer you exist, the more lives you live, the more family you have.  I believe that we all think when we die we get to see our grandparents and parents and cousins from this life, but there are SO MANY MORE people we don’t even know about that can’t wait to see us.  I feel like when you die you see someone you THOUGHT you knew in this lifetime and you scream, “OH MY GOD IT WAS YOU ALL ALONG!” and you laugh and embrace and sob all at once.

I think we’re all much more connected than we think, and when you die, you get to see all the threads, like a microscope on a tapestry.  It all makes sense and it all is so beautiful and logical and you can’t believe how you didn’t see it before.

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Q: Regarding multiple lives – I once heard that the idea is that we all live 1000 lives (not sure of the exact number, but a lot of lives at any rate), and we learn various lessons during each life/stage, then if we learn it, we move “up” to the next life. So people who have their shit together (so to speak) have lived more lives. Does that theory hold true in your opinion?

A:  Yes.  100%.

When I meet someone who is a mess, who doesn’t hold themselves accountable, who complains endlessly, who is weak and points fingers, I think to myself, “That’s a first lifer.”  It’s someone who is brand new to the Universe.  They can’t do better because they don’t know how to do better.  Spiritually, they’re an infant.

I’m not sure about the number of lives, but here’s what I was told.  Basically, The Other Side is like summer camp.  It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s peaceful.  Nothing bad happens.  And as we all know, pain and suffering cause growth.  So the only way to become better is to come here, where you know you will suffer.  The entire time.  In a way it’s like agreeing to jump out of a tree, knowing for sure something will be broken in your fall.

The older you are, the more fucked up your life is.  The more you suffer.  The more the Universe pushes you to a breaking point.  That’s how you become stronger.  That’s how you evolve.  We’re not here to be happy- we’re here to be better.

One of the “people” I still am in contact with has only come down here a few times and he says it’s because he’s lazy and weak.  Because living is hard, and it means being torn up for a long time.  It’s ugly.  But it makes you better.  I think it’s Pema Chodron who says that we don’t ask a bud if it hurts to break open into blossom.  I’m sure it does.  All transformation is agony.

The more you resist change, the more you stunt your own growth.