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i am old and tired. the twenty years that hold my memories somehow seem to stretch for millenia, and i wonder when i lost myself. more than that, i wonder when i will find myself. at times i feel so totally lost and semi-conscious that i drift without knowing where i am going, or even caring. it's almost as though i have become an impartial observer of my own existence and i am powerless to interfere, unable to turn the helm and change course.
my earliest memories are so distantly removed from myself, so hazy, that i can become unsure of their reality. have all these things really shaped who i am? but i have tried so hard to ignore my desires, tried so hard to cut myself off from my feelings, how could it have affected me? i think i am beginning to realize that in trying to run, i have locked myself into what seems an inescapable cage. now, suddenly, i want to be free. i am scared. i am scared of all the things that might be out there, outside the cage, scared of the Furies hovering in the shadows. i am scared of coming out and finding that the person i thought myself to be is gone and i have to wear myself in like a new pair of boots. i am scared that all my apparent bravado is going to desert me as soon as i step foot into my identity, that i will run straight back to the familiarity, the safety of that little closet i have lived in for 20 centuries. i know i have friends who support me, who have shared my little secret and who have been trying to smuggle me the keys to escape. i know i have one who i love more than life itself and who loves me back, yet she is so incredibly far away i have not seen her. i appreciate them all so much and wish that there was a way for them to break me out, but they can't. the key is tied to my wrist, and as much as i stand with my arms outside the bars, willing myself to just push through, i need to hold onto that key, push it into the lock, feel the resistance as i turn it, and the relief when it gives and the door swings open. but i am frightened. this fear, this all-encompassing fear, god only knows exactly what it is of. perhaps it is the innate fear of the unknown that seems to follow my movements, and bites my fingers when i have let them hesitate at the lock too long. wherever it stems from, it is a great form-finding fear that has engulfed my world in darkness for so long, i don't know how to break through it. imagining the scenario is always easy. i strut to the door, grasp the key tightly in my hand, slide it and turn it in the lock as effortlessly as can be, and bingo! the door springs open and i jump out a triumphant lesbian, in total control of my destiny! but it ain't that easy. i've tapped the lock for a long time, even slid the key in a few times and tested the resistance a little, but so far the courage to turn it completely has eluded me. and it all comes back to fear. lately i have been feeling a little stronger, almost desperate to break free. but the constant battling has wearied me, and i can feel myself starting to creep back into the shadows of my cell, where i will sit and play with the key a bit longer, crying out of the darkness for help, for freedom. and now i am found, waiting to be not lost.
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phoenix mckenna © Fri. 20 April, 2001