[Bulimia of Boys and Men]

Draft 6 of Chapter 15: Burying a Child

February 17 2008 12:42 am- 2:35 am.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Does it make sense if I told you that one of the many reasons is this--- your scream, another scream to the screaming inside me, inside where it’s hidden.

I was afraid that I would begin screaming and I would never stop.

I struggle to hide my scream.

Why didn’t I tell you? I have been telling you but you weren’t listening. You didn’t see and I was right there in front of you.

I didn’t want you to scream at me. I wanted to you to hold me, love me. I wanted you to know that without my telling you. I want you to hold me, love me but you don’t. Isn’t that what you were supposed to do?

I didn’t tell you because what was the point? You wouldn’t even listen. I was falling, falling--- and I didn’t have the strength to stop that falling and I didn’t have the strength to hold you, too. I could not even hold on to love, the love in my womb.

You just had to see what I hid and hide from the world, from you. Why couldn’t you see? All I wanted was for you to love me, hold me, weep with me. I thought if you loved me--- you would see what I couldn’t tell you.

I had to be dying until I told you. I felt it, my body knew--- an illness that could not be explained.

It was a child, dying.

I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t. I had no words for that. A scream, a scream, and I only reply silence. I cannot speak anymore. I have gone cold.

And now I am this scream inside me, asking the sky, “Is it done? Am I done?”

I hope the sky would have an answer when I wake up.

“I honestly didn’t know but I care!”

I wake up to remember what you said before you screamed at me. I wake up every hour to see if you had said something else. You haven’t spoken.

If you did care, if you do, you should’ve felt something, seen something, listened. If you cared, you should’ve have known, that’s what I thought. So how do I answer a question when I’ve already answered it so many times and you didn’t listen? I have been trying to tell you.

It was only last night that I was able to say those words. I’ve been saying it different ways with different words so as no to feel that loss. Maybe then, if I didn’t say it that way, it had not happened. Maybe then it isn’t true.

But the truth trickled out, little by little, and it gushed, out of my heart, out of my soul, out of my womb.

Do you think I didn’t want to keep it all inside me?

And I couldn’t speak; I cannot grieve.

Only here, with the sky, air, the low notes of the cello--- alone, alone.

I do not even weep. The sky gathers tears from me and it will weep for me: Be loved, be loved.

(Love or be loved?)

I think about what this means--- only now I realize that one has to choose one; I’ve been choosing the first when I should have chosen the last.

Why didn’t I tell you? Because you cannot comfort me. If I had told you then, you had to be the one comforted. And I couldn’t do that--- I didn’t have the strength. I was emptied. I still am and still, knowing, you do not comfort me.

And still I don’t hate you, even as you coil and hide into your pain there while I’m here, begging, waiting for you to come to me--- love me, hold me, still you are not with me.

Did you know how painful it was to hide this grief? No one can know and you weren’t even to know. But I cannot bear this alone. The wound was in my womb, is in my womb.

It is our wound, in my womb. I cannot heal it alone.

You have to help me, but now, there— you are--- but not here, not with me. You gather your strength from that ball--- for whom, for what, until when?

Will you ever have the strength to hold me, love me?

Now.

You will--- in time.

How I wish I could hate you.

“May I hold you?” you said as you sat on the floor, as you looked at me.

I sat there, looking outside, looking at the sky.

I began crying---

I nodded.

I said, “Please…”

You sat beside me, hugged me-- wiping the tears off my face with your thumb and forefinger, stroking my face with the back of your fingers. Then you held my face with your left hand close to your neck, while your right hand held me so close, so close to you as you rocked me and kissed my forehead.

I looked up to you then and I saw you look at me with so much love in your solemn face, love for me, sorrow for me. You did not cry.

“I wanted our child,” I whispered in tears.

“I would have chosen you over a child, always,” you whispered back, still stroking my tears, “We talked about this already.”

“And you know I would choose the child over myself, always” I said.

“There will be another one, others.”

“No,” I said, “And not yours.”

You didn’t say anything. I felt comforted and loved and I placed both of my hands around you and hugged you tight and close to me, “I wanted our child.”

You kissed me, a kiss asking permission--- you placed your lips on the corner of my mouth, on my lips, but barely touching. I don’t move away.

Then you kissed me, a kiss that says sorry— kissed me so softly, so gently, soothing but firm, as if you were afraid of doing more than that because I might suddenly pull away, telling you that I don’t forgive you.

Yet I knew you would not let me go, not that easily.

How did we bury our child?

I kissed you back, I stopped crying.

You made love to me—

telling me that you were sorry.

You buried yourself inside me—

telling me that you were here with me.

You made sure that there would be no child from it—

telling me you loved me.

You don’t stop kissing me.

(We love)

After, you return to your pain --- there--- and you leave me here, to mine.

Later, I asked, “Do you think it was a boy or a girl?”

You only answered, “My love…”

Much later, you suddenly said, “I think it would have been a boy.”

I nodded and I smiled.

Then you said, “I feel guilty, you know. I feel like I didn’t take care of you…”

You didn’t. I said, “It’s done.”

You nodded and sighed.

I kissed you and you smiled.

We live.

Angry.

I am so angry at you, for those and these, this:

Our child is still in my womb even after five months dead.

Our child is still a wound in my womb.

And where are you?

And where am I?

And where are we?

We’ve been reduced to this: we say “Good morning”; you say you’re at work; I say “don’t tire yourself”; we say “I miss you” or a random thought or a question in the afternoon; then you say you’re tired and that you’re going home; then you say you’re going to sleep, good night, I love you.

These words no longer mean much: ringing empty. We’ve become as constant and as unrelenting as a Bundy clock, almost as cold as this wind that chills us.

And I’ve become very angry: at frustration over a matter of not being able to watch a movie; of not having my calls and messages answered at once; of being ignored and relegated--- by you; of being this unhappy fixture--- a goddamn dead star of love--- in your life. I scream.

I scream at you because our child is still a wound inside me.

You scream at me when I am screaming at you because you say I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know what to do with you, with us. All I know is that I love you.

Show me, I would scream in my grief, in pain. You simply say I love you again. That is all you can do: it is not enough. Be with me, just be with me even for just one day, I would say. I need you to hold me, even just hug me to make the pain go away, even for just a little while. You simply say I can’t, I can’t, I’m too tired.

I scream at you, Let’s talk now! Now!

And you scream at me, “No! I don’t want to! I’m so angry and you’re so angry! No! I don’t want to talk to you when you’re like that!”

I scream, We need to talk now! I want this hurting to end! I need you with me now!

You scream, “I don’t want to come to you!”

I scream, Where are you when I need you? Why can’t you be there when I need you? We need to talk now! I’m leaving tomorrow!

You scream, “You want to leave me? Then leave! Go away! I don’t want to talk to you!”

And I’ve become silent once more.

You ask my silence, “I don’t want us to be angry with each other any more. Can we be normal? Meaning no fights? If this relationship would not work out, can we at least be friends?”

I felt my heart stop, Normal? He doesn’t understand. He has left me, alone once more with our wound in my womb. I keep my silence, not knowing what else to say, afraid to say anything--- because only angry words would come out.

You don’t stop me.

You don’t ask me to come back to you.

You don’t tell me that you love me.

You don’t tell me that you will be there for me.

You tell my silence, “Sorry. I truly am.”

I am bleeding from loving you and still I love you.

I wish my love for you had bled out and died with our child.

Bleeding and silent, I leave.

2:20 am

Fuck this. This is depressing.

I want to say “Fuck you” to the sleeping universe right now:

by sticking my head outside my 12^th floor bedroom window and scream;

or throw the PC or the phone outside and wait to hear the crash.

Let’s just write “When the Sorceress Went to Fairy-Tale Writing School”.

Or 25 Life: It takes work.

Fuck writing. I’ll resume reading page 108 onwards of “The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant”.

Hail Jeffrey Ford.