Thursday, January 24, 2008

Bare Eyes

Tomorrow my eyes will be examined. The plaquinil I take for lupus can damage my eyes. It probably won't. But it could. And the birth control nuva-ring I had in probably wouldn't cause clots in my brain. Probably won't. But it did.

The eyes have it. I crochet a hat for my dad tonight. It's all black yarn as he requested--thin to fit under his bike helmet. I don't tell him that my mom used a hat I knitted her to fit under her bike helmet. They don't talk much anymore after the divorce a few months ago. The woman at the yarn store next to the laundromat where I did eight simultanous loads of laundry told me that black yarn is hard to work with, "hard on the eyes," she said, "but you have young eyes, so you can't use that as an excuse." No, I can't. I don't think the medication has damaged them. I will spend three hours at the opthamologist tomorrow to find out for sure. My eyes see clearly now.

Even with the rain gone. I thought I could make it when the rain was not gone. I thought I could see clearly when Jane was here playing Johny Cash and watching me cut plastic bags into plastic strips to knit into another type of bag. And when we ordered pizza and the delivery boy showed up soaking wet in the rare Southern California downpour. For a few moments I saw clearly. With the rain not gone.

I won't let anyone love me.

I get prickly and difficult inside and make excuses at the first glance of interest, "It probably won't work out anyway because of my job or my illness or my body or his love of video games or a million other reasons we'd discover if we started talking about anything real. Besides I don't want it anyway. So there."

I text Steve as I'm reading Les Mes--the part where Marius and Cosette are in their first throws of innocent and uninterrupted adoration--I tell him I can bear illness and death and sorrow, as long as I'm allowed to not bare my soul.

Seeing him today reminded me how lonely I am. How lonely I try to forget that I am. How I tell myself I don't want it, perhaps because I'm afraid of the risk, perhaps because I'm insecure, perhaps because I don't want to dissapoint anyone who I might be able to love, perhaps because I've had my share of hurt and because I expect more than my share of understanding, perhaps because I don't always love myself, and why then would anyone else love me. How could they? How at the end of the day, I sleep alone and tell myself that it's better that way. I sleep better that way. I don't have to deal with the love part or anyone snoring. I tell myself it's better that way.

I lie to myself, and tell myself it's better that way.

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