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Oct. 23rd, 2002 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pluralfor those of you who asked
I have posted this
and for those of you who did not
I have lj-cut it
I sit in this church and I am alone,
despite the throng of silently murmuring people dressed in their Sunday best.
Built in the 1800s on an island in the British Caribbean,
it rests along the crest of a hill and offers a surreal view of the ocean through its traditional stained glass windows.
Looking down, I can see yachts anchored in the small harbor;
I strain my eyes to see if I can recognize the one I have called home these past few weeks.
Once, not long ago, that yacht, or more accurately the events on it,
brought me great joy, but never again shall I step upon her lacquered teak decks,
or grasp her polished brass rails.
This is all so very wrong, for so many different reasons.
I should not be here, none of us should, especially not her.
She would never choose this place, not this church, or any other.
She is an agnostic on the best of days and an atheist on the worst of them.
It is her parent's decision and that is why we are here, I suppose, for them.
I am dressed in my best suit, a black pinstripe; she is wearing a conservative white dress.
She doesn't like white much, says it washes her out, but as I said it is her parent's decision.
She looks beautiful; I stare at her with loving disbelief from my seat in the front pew.
Her hair, golden and shimmering in the sunlight which drifts down in solid rays from the window.
It is one of my favorite things about her, always has been, so soft against my face.
I could lose myself forever in the nape of her neck, breathing her scent, that simple joy of human touch.
The way it bounces when she runs down the beach, sways when she dances,
yet somehow, magically is never the slightest bit out of place.
Charlotte was one of those girls, envied by all, whose grace made perfection seem entirely too easy.
My eyes return, drawn to her face, she looks divine, my eternal angel.
She is wearing more makeup than usual; again her mother's influence;
a southern belle to the very last drop.
Her smile is fixed perfectly between her high cheekbones, a smile I am well familiar with, but have never liked.
Don't get me wrong here, I adore the way my love smiles,
to see that involuntary twitch of those precious few muscles brings a joy to my heart
that I am unable to contain, let alone describe.
But this is not that smile, not that spontaneous smile which reflects internal happiness
No, this is that perfectly cultivated smile, trained into her from birth, the socialite's mask.
I have own of my own, and I hate it nearly as much.
Her eyes reflect light, but not with life; they are empty, as if she would rather be somewhere else.
I can understand that, I would rather she was somewhere else,
I would rather I was somewhere else, anywhere else, anywhere at all but here.
I wrestle a broken excuse for a smile to my face, but it is all I can manage.
My intestines seem to be strangling my lungs.
The pastor begins his sermon, but I hear none of it, in fact, I hear almost nothing at all these days.
The birds have no song, the trees no whispers and people, well people are like ghosts to me.
They seem fuzzy and transparent, distant and unreal.
I have been transported into a snoopy comic strip, where people speak in unintelligible mumbles.
My mind wanders; no it is yanked forcibly by the teeth, back in time, to that night.
It was only a few days ago but seems longer than several lifetimes.
It started out beautiful, as most evenings had been, in my too perfect life.
The yacht was anchored a hundred feet or so offshore,
a dozen other yachts had anchored to the leeward side of her.
On her pristine teak decks lay Charlie, soaking up the last few rays of that day's sun.
I was below decks, sharing a bottle of wine with my cousin as I prepared the evening meal, coq au vin.
This particular recipe was one of my specialties, and one of Charlie's favorites.
I have not made it since that night, and it is doubtful that I ever will again.
My cousin's girlfriend, Gabriella came down the hatch, still dripping from her swim, poured herself a glass of wine.
I called up to Charlie to come down and join us as dinner was almost ready.
The past weeks had consisted of only this, a pair of lovers, frolicking in the sun and surf;
I had never before known such happiness.
I refuse to accept the world as it exists now.
I know I am not dreaming, no nightmare could be this cruel.
The world has ended; it is just that none of these people can see it.
I am in a daze. Hope for the future has crashed to the ground around me.
Glass cathedrals of dreams lie shattered in pieces of memory.
A large slab of hope, of denial hangs above my head.
Maybe this isn't real somehow, some sort of sick joke.
Please, let this just be, a dream.
Why can't I just wake up, to feel her sleeping beside me?
The way her body rolls into mine, ever so slightly with each breath, always fills me with peace.
I return to our last evening together, how we danced and kissed;
how she felt in my arms, leaning against me.
I curse myself for not being there,
not being there for her when it really mattered,
not being there to save her.
Such curses are useless though,
I did not know that one kiss,
and those few sweet words of whispered perversion would be our last.
We were only parting for a moment,
a matter of a few hundred feet at most.
Those few feet separate us still,
only now they have become an impassable desert,
and that desert has become my home.
I ran back to the club which we had danced all evening,
of all things to get a forgotten sweater.
Life is strange, how in moments of time we make trades and deals without realizing them.
In that moment, with that kiss, I traded a yellow cardigan sweater
for my heart, my dreams, and my very soul.
I didn't make it far maybe halfway from the end of the dock
to the clubhouse on the edge of the beach before it happened.
At first I didn't know what, you never do,
you just hear that sickening crunch.
Your gut wrenches,
you do not need to know what happened to know that something is terribly wrong.
The world stood still as I turned around
my mind racing to figure out what was going on.
The waves paused their tireless assault against the beach,
the stars stopped twinkling, their eyes turned to watch these events.
I reach the end of the dock before I realized I had been running.
I heard the voices, calling out in shock, in pain, in panic, "Charlie! ... Charlie!"
I threw off my shirt, kicked my sandals into the sea, and dove into the water.
It took me several seconds to reach the dinghy, and a fraction more to realize what happened.
The small zodiac carrying all that I held precious had been struck by another boat.
It had hit her side of the boat, and she had fallen overboard.
My cousin was shining his flashlight around but saw no sign of her.
Others started arriving at the scene; an older man about fifty took charge.
His voice carried authority and everyone moved quickly to respond to his commands.
I swam the remaining twenty yards or so to our yacht, started yanking out the scuba gear and suiting up.
We had four sets of gear so two men from another boat joined us.
I was panicking and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
The guys told me to stay put, that working together in an organized fashion was our only hope.
They were right of course, and I hated them instantly for it.
Everything was taking too long. In reality only a few minutes had passed,
and the entire search party was geared up and assembled within five minutes of the accident.
In the next thirty seconds, the man separated us into pairs, a
ssigned us each a search grid and gave an overview of search patterns.
We split up, each to their assigned grid and dove into the water.
The next twenty-one minutes were remarkably calm for me,
the absolute silence of the water, only interrupted by the occasion whir of a dinghy racing above me.
The water was dark, beyond black;
nothing existed except what was illuminated by my light.
A prayer unspoken was my entire existence,
I could not even think it, so strong was the fear of it being denied.
My partner, a thirty-ish young man from Boston,
whom I had meet briefly a week earlier,
came back from the surface check and grabbed my shoulder.
I looked up saw his thumb jerking upwards, signaling me to surface.
My head broke the surface and I saw a zodiac ten feet to my left,
I spat out my regulator and with two kicks was beside the dinghy.
"They found her".
In probably the only time in my life,
I slipped over the edge of the zodiac with two graceful kicks of my flippers.
I did not think about it, I just willed it to happen.
The dozen seconds or so it took to travel to the dock were painful,
I had to be there,
now,
right fucking now,
and why didn't they understand that.
There was a zodiac at the dock, being tied in place,
with three men in it, and two men standing on the dock but no Charlie.
I jumped out of the boat, and then I saw her,
pale in the yellowish glow of the artificial lights,
lying in the bottom of the dinghy, her shirt ripped open, hair matted and in disarray.
The two men taking turn, doing CPR and the third holding the searchlight
I could only stand by and watch, helpless.
I watched her choke, spit water;
building hopes only to have them shattered.
But hope was all I had, all I could do.
It was four eternal hours of hell,
watching others perform CPR on her mostly lifeless body,
before she slipped silently into the abyss.
The local doctor finally decided to show up,
called the time of death and began the paperwork.
I sat there staring in disbelief at her half naked body,
the light of dawn just barely eliminating the shadows.
Hand shaped bruises on her chest the only color in her flesh.
I heard the doctor, walking away, say to one of the others.
"If the water had only been a few degrees colder, she would have made it."
Those words haunt me still;
I lie awake and wonder the cruelty of a god that could not spare us so few degrees.
I didn't waste my breath, cursing god that night, for I already knew his answer.
I would later learn, that the pilot of that boat, a Boston Whaler,
had been drunk and showing off to girl he had picked up at the same club.
When he hit the zodiac, he struck Charlotte in the back of the head,
knocked her into the water unconscious.
He had neglected to turn on his running lights, and was doing high speed donuts in the bay.
Without those lights, they never had a chance to evade, never saw it coming.
Perhaps that is my only comfort,
that her last memory was not one of fear, but one of love.
She passed on with kisses and whispers of sweet nothings.
My rage and my grief, all that kept me upright, solid, is spent.
All that is real to me is false.
Touch, feel, smell, hear and taste, these senses fail me.
I have been denied my essential senses and I hardly care.
What good would they do me, when all that which I want to possess, to experience
is a vacuous token, a placeholder?
What there is and all that exists within me is alone in this mass of bodies.
Perhaps, she is here with me.
I seem to feel her right here beside me, or is it her absence I feel.
I can see her, touch her, and smell her if I wish, but that is all false, she isn't there.
That which remains of my shattered heart lies in that empty shell wrapped in silk and encased in mahogany.
Where is she, if not there, if not here, then where?
I can only hope that she is in heaven, but that too, seems a cruel and unhappy place.
I have posted this
and for those of you who did not
I have lj-cut it
I sit in this church and I am alone,
despite the throng of silently murmuring people dressed in their Sunday best.
Built in the 1800s on an island in the British Caribbean,
it rests along the crest of a hill and offers a surreal view of the ocean through its traditional stained glass windows.
Looking down, I can see yachts anchored in the small harbor;
I strain my eyes to see if I can recognize the one I have called home these past few weeks.
Once, not long ago, that yacht, or more accurately the events on it,
brought me great joy, but never again shall I step upon her lacquered teak decks,
or grasp her polished brass rails.
This is all so very wrong, for so many different reasons.
I should not be here, none of us should, especially not her.
She would never choose this place, not this church, or any other.
She is an agnostic on the best of days and an atheist on the worst of them.
It is her parent's decision and that is why we are here, I suppose, for them.
I am dressed in my best suit, a black pinstripe; she is wearing a conservative white dress.
She doesn't like white much, says it washes her out, but as I said it is her parent's decision.
She looks beautiful; I stare at her with loving disbelief from my seat in the front pew.
Her hair, golden and shimmering in the sunlight which drifts down in solid rays from the window.
It is one of my favorite things about her, always has been, so soft against my face.
I could lose myself forever in the nape of her neck, breathing her scent, that simple joy of human touch.
The way it bounces when she runs down the beach, sways when she dances,
yet somehow, magically is never the slightest bit out of place.
Charlotte was one of those girls, envied by all, whose grace made perfection seem entirely too easy.
My eyes return, drawn to her face, she looks divine, my eternal angel.
She is wearing more makeup than usual; again her mother's influence;
a southern belle to the very last drop.
Her smile is fixed perfectly between her high cheekbones, a smile I am well familiar with, but have never liked.
Don't get me wrong here, I adore the way my love smiles,
to see that involuntary twitch of those precious few muscles brings a joy to my heart
that I am unable to contain, let alone describe.
But this is not that smile, not that spontaneous smile which reflects internal happiness
No, this is that perfectly cultivated smile, trained into her from birth, the socialite's mask.
I have own of my own, and I hate it nearly as much.
Her eyes reflect light, but not with life; they are empty, as if she would rather be somewhere else.
I can understand that, I would rather she was somewhere else,
I would rather I was somewhere else, anywhere else, anywhere at all but here.
I wrestle a broken excuse for a smile to my face, but it is all I can manage.
My intestines seem to be strangling my lungs.
The pastor begins his sermon, but I hear none of it, in fact, I hear almost nothing at all these days.
The birds have no song, the trees no whispers and people, well people are like ghosts to me.
They seem fuzzy and transparent, distant and unreal.
I have been transported into a snoopy comic strip, where people speak in unintelligible mumbles.
My mind wanders; no it is yanked forcibly by the teeth, back in time, to that night.
It was only a few days ago but seems longer than several lifetimes.
It started out beautiful, as most evenings had been, in my too perfect life.
The yacht was anchored a hundred feet or so offshore,
a dozen other yachts had anchored to the leeward side of her.
On her pristine teak decks lay Charlie, soaking up the last few rays of that day's sun.
I was below decks, sharing a bottle of wine with my cousin as I prepared the evening meal, coq au vin.
This particular recipe was one of my specialties, and one of Charlie's favorites.
I have not made it since that night, and it is doubtful that I ever will again.
My cousin's girlfriend, Gabriella came down the hatch, still dripping from her swim, poured herself a glass of wine.
I called up to Charlie to come down and join us as dinner was almost ready.
The past weeks had consisted of only this, a pair of lovers, frolicking in the sun and surf;
I had never before known such happiness.
I refuse to accept the world as it exists now.
I know I am not dreaming, no nightmare could be this cruel.
The world has ended; it is just that none of these people can see it.
I am in a daze. Hope for the future has crashed to the ground around me.
Glass cathedrals of dreams lie shattered in pieces of memory.
A large slab of hope, of denial hangs above my head.
Maybe this isn't real somehow, some sort of sick joke.
Please, let this just be, a dream.
Why can't I just wake up, to feel her sleeping beside me?
The way her body rolls into mine, ever so slightly with each breath, always fills me with peace.
I return to our last evening together, how we danced and kissed;
how she felt in my arms, leaning against me.
I curse myself for not being there,
not being there for her when it really mattered,
not being there to save her.
Such curses are useless though,
I did not know that one kiss,
and those few sweet words of whispered perversion would be our last.
We were only parting for a moment,
a matter of a few hundred feet at most.
Those few feet separate us still,
only now they have become an impassable desert,
and that desert has become my home.
I ran back to the club which we had danced all evening,
of all things to get a forgotten sweater.
Life is strange, how in moments of time we make trades and deals without realizing them.
In that moment, with that kiss, I traded a yellow cardigan sweater
for my heart, my dreams, and my very soul.
I didn't make it far maybe halfway from the end of the dock
to the clubhouse on the edge of the beach before it happened.
At first I didn't know what, you never do,
you just hear that sickening crunch.
Your gut wrenches,
you do not need to know what happened to know that something is terribly wrong.
The world stood still as I turned around
my mind racing to figure out what was going on.
The waves paused their tireless assault against the beach,
the stars stopped twinkling, their eyes turned to watch these events.
I reach the end of the dock before I realized I had been running.
I heard the voices, calling out in shock, in pain, in panic, "Charlie! ... Charlie!"
I threw off my shirt, kicked my sandals into the sea, and dove into the water.
It took me several seconds to reach the dinghy, and a fraction more to realize what happened.
The small zodiac carrying all that I held precious had been struck by another boat.
It had hit her side of the boat, and she had fallen overboard.
My cousin was shining his flashlight around but saw no sign of her.
Others started arriving at the scene; an older man about fifty took charge.
His voice carried authority and everyone moved quickly to respond to his commands.
I swam the remaining twenty yards or so to our yacht, started yanking out the scuba gear and suiting up.
We had four sets of gear so two men from another boat joined us.
I was panicking and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
The guys told me to stay put, that working together in an organized fashion was our only hope.
They were right of course, and I hated them instantly for it.
Everything was taking too long. In reality only a few minutes had passed,
and the entire search party was geared up and assembled within five minutes of the accident.
In the next thirty seconds, the man separated us into pairs, a
ssigned us each a search grid and gave an overview of search patterns.
We split up, each to their assigned grid and dove into the water.
The next twenty-one minutes were remarkably calm for me,
the absolute silence of the water, only interrupted by the occasion whir of a dinghy racing above me.
The water was dark, beyond black;
nothing existed except what was illuminated by my light.
A prayer unspoken was my entire existence,
I could not even think it, so strong was the fear of it being denied.
My partner, a thirty-ish young man from Boston,
whom I had meet briefly a week earlier,
came back from the surface check and grabbed my shoulder.
I looked up saw his thumb jerking upwards, signaling me to surface.
My head broke the surface and I saw a zodiac ten feet to my left,
I spat out my regulator and with two kicks was beside the dinghy.
"They found her".
In probably the only time in my life,
I slipped over the edge of the zodiac with two graceful kicks of my flippers.
I did not think about it, I just willed it to happen.
The dozen seconds or so it took to travel to the dock were painful,
I had to be there,
now,
right fucking now,
and why didn't they understand that.
There was a zodiac at the dock, being tied in place,
with three men in it, and two men standing on the dock but no Charlie.
I jumped out of the boat, and then I saw her,
pale in the yellowish glow of the artificial lights,
lying in the bottom of the dinghy, her shirt ripped open, hair matted and in disarray.
The two men taking turn, doing CPR and the third holding the searchlight
I could only stand by and watch, helpless.
I watched her choke, spit water;
building hopes only to have them shattered.
But hope was all I had, all I could do.
It was four eternal hours of hell,
watching others perform CPR on her mostly lifeless body,
before she slipped silently into the abyss.
The local doctor finally decided to show up,
called the time of death and began the paperwork.
I sat there staring in disbelief at her half naked body,
the light of dawn just barely eliminating the shadows.
Hand shaped bruises on her chest the only color in her flesh.
I heard the doctor, walking away, say to one of the others.
"If the water had only been a few degrees colder, she would have made it."
Those words haunt me still;
I lie awake and wonder the cruelty of a god that could not spare us so few degrees.
I didn't waste my breath, cursing god that night, for I already knew his answer.
I would later learn, that the pilot of that boat, a Boston Whaler,
had been drunk and showing off to girl he had picked up at the same club.
When he hit the zodiac, he struck Charlotte in the back of the head,
knocked her into the water unconscious.
He had neglected to turn on his running lights, and was doing high speed donuts in the bay.
Without those lights, they never had a chance to evade, never saw it coming.
Perhaps that is my only comfort,
that her last memory was not one of fear, but one of love.
She passed on with kisses and whispers of sweet nothings.
My rage and my grief, all that kept me upright, solid, is spent.
All that is real to me is false.
Touch, feel, smell, hear and taste, these senses fail me.
I have been denied my essential senses and I hardly care.
What good would they do me, when all that which I want to possess, to experience
is a vacuous token, a placeholder?
What there is and all that exists within me is alone in this mass of bodies.
Perhaps, she is here with me.
I seem to feel her right here beside me, or is it her absence I feel.
I can see her, touch her, and smell her if I wish, but that is all false, she isn't there.
That which remains of my shattered heart lies in that empty shell wrapped in silk and encased in mahogany.
Where is she, if not there, if not here, then where?
I can only hope that she is in heaven, but that too, seems a cruel and unhappy place.
