TheBanyanTree: Crash and Burn

[Sharon Mack]

Rob, 

I have been right where you are.  It was many years ago and I wish, at
the time, I was as wise as you are.  Everything you say is so true.  My
heart is with you.  I will keep my good thoughts and prayers for you. 
"This too shall pass," but as you say, the fire must burn first.  Below
is a story I wrote in my time of sorrow.  If it is not something you
want to read, I understand...delete now.

Sharon

BLACK VELVET

It is five after two in the morning and I am drunk on the beach.  He
left me yesterday morning.  Left me with a slow word and a bare smile. 
His face was gray, like the light that had barely begun to show itself
in the dullness of our bedroom.  I thought I saw him hesitate and for a
flashing moment I had hope.  Hope that it wasn't true. Hope that he was
just tired of the fight.  Hope that he would rally, but I was wrong.  It
was just my imagination.  I wanted to see it, the hesitation. Willed
myself to see it.  

I told myself to be cool; he'd come to his senses.  We'd been together
too long.  He couldn't live without me any more than I could live
without him.  We were a part of each other.  We breathed one another.  I
reached out to touch his arm and felt him recoil.  I sucked in my breath
and turned toward the wall.  I couldn't let him see the tears.  I
wouldn't do this.  Cry.  Cry like a small wounded child.  I was not a
child.  He would see this and think me brave.  He would realize my
strength and love me for it just as he always had.  I breathed in deeply
and sensed his movement toward the door.  I turned, only seeing his back
as he went and I knew it was for the last time.  He meant it.  He was
leaving me.

I stood there for the longest time.  It felt like hours but by the clock
I knew it had been mere minutes.  I was numb.  What to do wasn't even a
question I was asking yet.  Not then, not so soon after he left.  

But I'm asking now and I am finding there is no answer, except for the
one at the bottom of my beloved bottle.  I turn it in my hand and read
the label as though I'd never seen the words "Black Velvet" before.  I
choke on my sobs and swallow them down with my next swig from my
beautiful bottle.  I let it burn all the way down, savoring the hot,
fiery feel of the golden liquid.  I want the heat.  I want it to burn
all the pain out of my gut.   Black velvet, black velvet, I say the
words over and over.  I want to feel the whiskey's black velvet on my
consciousness.  I pray for the black velvet of drunkenness, the black
velvet of unconsciousness, the black velvet of my own dying.

I take another swig and notice that the bottle is almost gone and my
despair is still with me.  It's icy cold fingers are wrapped around my
heart and my soul.  I drop my final hope inside the bottle.  The answer
to my question.  The whiteness of the pills disappears as they fizz and
growl at the bottom and I lift the Black Velvet to my lips for the very
last time.  I lay the bottle down in the cold, cold sand and now I am
waiting,

waiting,

waiting.

Sharon Mack  1983



>>> "Rob McMonigal" <trebro at gmail.com> 03/10/06 10:11 PM >>>
After four plus years, it's over, probably (though not quite 100% sure,
more
like 99.9%) for good.  She's leaving me, because I'm just not able to
give
her the romance she wants in her life, whatever that means.

I gave her love, I gave her support, I gave her everything I had,
including
my dignity when I cried and begged her not to go.

She drove off anyway.

It is time now for me to crash and burn, to let the old oak of myself be
consumed by the flames so the seed that brings rebirth can open in
fertile
soil and let me grow again.  I can't let the fire ranger through to
douse
the flames---I need to just let it happen.

But Lord help me, I don't want to.

I don't hate her, not at all.  I just wish she'd given me a chance to
make
things right, or at least told me sooner that she was unhappy.  She told
me
that there were pieces missing for her--I hope she finds them on her
own.  I
hope she graduates and goes on to a wonderful life, free of me and
whatever
I was doing to hold her back.

I wish she'd drive back.  I keep waiting for the lights and to hear her
key
in the door, just like it was.  I wait for this because I'm an ass.

I'm going home to my parents for awhile.  Maybe just for a month, maybe
for
a year.  Maybe for as long as they'll let me, I really don't know.  Part
of
me feels like somewhere along the path of my life, I took a serious
sidetrack, and now that I'm finally derailed, it's time to see just who
Rob
is--again.

Maybe that's just the way of life, to keep wondering who you are and
what
you are.  Or maybe it's just me and my messed-up cranium.

Either way, it's time to regroup.  Let the seed germinate and hope for
plenty of sun and water.  To do otherwise would just be letting the old
tree, scarred and burned, just sit, waiting to die.  I can't do that. 
At
least not yet.

But oh God, that fire burns.

-Rob