I am the face of the aftermath of divorce, the aftermath of layoff, the aftermath of defeat. I am the face of invisible illness, of piercing isolation, of daily hide-and-seek.
Would you know me if you saw me?
I am your neighbor, your colleague, your sister; I am the woman who yells at the cashier because I am breaking. I am the woman who apologizes afterward, and too often. I will nod and take my change and say thank you. You will not recognize me as the face of despair.
Behind a given face on a given street at a given hour, behind the woman’s face, the mother’s face, the lover’s face – behind the veiled expression and appropriate responses reside a dozen revolving realities, truths as we know them in our blood and marrow, lives reconfiguring as the day unfolds or the night plunges us again into darkness.
* * * * *
Our worlds are tiny, however many times we circle the globe, impress an audience of attentive listeners, make love to men and women who honor our bodies momentarily, then flit to the next conquest. Perhaps we are fortunate, and another soul curls around our quiet, for safekeeping.
We rally around our finest set of inner selves, our unarticulated flaws, our strengths and insecurities, our tenuous connections to loved ones. We adhere to the physicality of sons and daughters, tied to heart beats, to shunts and splints, to lucid dreaming.
Now, I will name my faces and you may guess if they flicker or solidify: I am the face of pride, of wonder, of gratitude; I am the face of rage, of exhaustion, of fear.
* * * * *
This is the terror that hijacks me in the night: impotence as I read my dwindling chapters, disappearance from my own horizons, withdrawal from a competitive sea where numbers dispossess me.
I ache for the register of a lover’s voice, for the caress of a last encounter, for a few hours respite from worry, my body folded into a stranger’s embrace.
We are all strangers. Didn’t you know?
I am not a seer, but I grant power to my predictions; one day, you may understand. I do not wish this on you, but I whisper for those who cower in the corner, paralyzed by our collective silence. Shall we gaze into the mirror together instead, before it is too late? Shall we gather in a circle, speak our minds, unravel our origins, chant our invocations, discover a path beyond the fist and tangle, beyond the woman’s face, the weary acceptance – this indecipherable waste?
© D A Wolf
Your words are reverberation inside an echo chamber in my head. Yet I am at a loss for words to explain why and how.
“I am the face of pride, of wonder, of gratitude; I am the face of rage, of exhaustion, of fear.”
Yes. Please let this be the rallying call.
I am at a loss for words. I have never met you, so really, I don’t know your face. But through these words, I know your heart. And it matters not to me what your face looks like. Beaten, bright, broken, baffled, beaming, bring it on. I want to be in that circle with you. Chanting, discovering, accepting. And also fighting.
I am in awe of you.
Wow. What lies behind our nicities, our masks? When we collapse at the end of the day, we find ourselves with defeats we hide, nursing the wounds privately. The moments when we strangers recognize each other’s real faces are transcendent.
Powerful words. You are a force to be reckoned with. And I would love to join in that circle.
This prose-poetry isn’t a whisper; it’s a fierce and primal and raw roar. I hear you. I am listening, breath bated and heart open.
I think most of this post seems to speak to the idea of loneliness in conjunction with the inevitable slippage of time. This is a circle that, by circumstance, I remain outside — would not feel right trying to call myself a part of it (you know where on the path I am). But I can stand behind you and place my hands on your shoulders, BLW.
It is more than the slippage of time. It is the repeated failure of our institutions – public and private – to serve the needs of women who have served their needs and followed their rules for decades. It is our deafening silence, because we are too weary or too ill or too defeated to stand alone any longer. It is the culmination of anger and anguish, the loss of a sense of justice, the acceptance of a demeaned and disappearing self, the desire to repaint the image of our society in more optimistic terms for our children, though we may know otherwise. Still, we would like to believe that if we have the strength to raise our children we may – collectively – raise our voices. And end the silence.
I read this post, went to a meeting, and came back to read it again. I am at a loss for words as the power within it and the emotion is there. It resonates in a way that I am not sure I yet have the words to describe. Sometimes I am all of these, as I think we are each people who are these faces and yet, there are times when it doesn’t matter what face we wear as we stand alone – toe-to-toe with institutions who see us not for the people we are or our experiences but as just another face in the masses.
I would not recognize you on the streets and yet I would recognize aspects of you for your experience or your heart or due to the commonalities within each of us …
Your very best, today, BLW. Truth and beauty and anguish and pain. Most powerful is the truth.
Oh how I hear you, BLW, but many more need to. And this life behind the face you speak of, could very easily become any of ours in this climate. (On a regular basis, I have millionaires pleading poverty in my ear, alluding to the fortunes they’ve lost in recent past — hard to take when a few miles from their mansions there is real suffering by folks who’ve paid their lifetime dues yet reap little benefits.) And I fear that we will be suffering the aftermath for many more years to come. On a grander scale, I believe it’s true that large institutions have to get worse before they get better or morph into something completely different. But too many individuals get squeezed in the process, and single mothers get the brunt of it.
I don’t have any answers. All I can say is I am with you.
Powerfully written. This post made me very sad. You are light. You are spirit. The universe is one song. All we can ever do is shine our light into the world. Or not. That’s the choice.
No need to ask; I’m already there.
BLW, this is gorgeous, but also so very sad. I am familiar with melancholy and the ways that loss can haunt our days, and wish that I could keep it at bay for you. Your reminders of what exists behind the faces of all of those we see, both known and unknown, are moving and important. Thank you. xo
David, lights dwindle. Even the brightest bulb will eventually go out.
The human spirit has to be nurtured or it can’t shine brightly. Your comment is based on your perspective. That perspective comes from your own situation. One that luckily was a good one compared to most.
There is not always the “choice” to shine. The human spirit can be broken by things beyond our control. Telling someone who has just opened her heart and shared her pain to “shine her light” is dismissive and a tad bit ignorant.
I’m sorry but I have days where there is no light to shine. I have days when I’m pissed as hell. I have days when I’m frightened about what the future will bring. I have more bad days than good days and no amount of pretending to feel good is going to make my light shine any brighter.
I don’t lie to myself about life or the universe or how much better I will feel if I act happy whether or not I am. I don’t wallow in the bad days either. I get up and do what has to be done because I don’t have any other choice. That is the choice I make on those days…put one foot in front of the other and get it done regardless of how I feel.
I also never project my situation onto others. I know from experience that banal platitudes about “doing something different” or “let your light shine” are of no use to someone who is in pain, afraid and struggling with things beyond her control.
That just adds one more thing to her list of things she should be doing. And the last thing she needs is to feel guilty because her damned “light” isn’t shining more brightly on the universe.
What she needs and has earned is for the universe to shine a light more brightly on her and her children.
You amaze me with the depth of feeling in your posts, but this one goes above and beyond. Quite possibly your best post yet in terms of enveloping all who read it into what you are going through and the struggles you face. Through your transparency, you’ve developed a support system of people who care about the woman whose face is behind the life.
Like a Phoenix, you WILL rise from this, transformed into something stronger!
We are who we are and that can change from moment to moment or day to day. I don’t think this is a male or female issue. It is a human condition.
We are the light or the dark that we see inside our souls.
This post tugs at my heart. *hugs*
Very powerful words.
You are truly art embodied because in your pain, there is beauty.
I would recognize you and I would understand the vortex that grabs you up, spins you around without mercy and then drops you on your head…until next time. We don’t live in that place, its not all the time, sometimes hard for other people to recognize as we maneuver through the process trying hard not to get for too long…..
It sucks. I’m sorry!
BLW, I read this yesterday. I wanted to comment yesterday, but couldn’t articulate a cohesive response. I read it again today and I am still struggling to find the right words. For now, I wanted to let you know that this post speaks to me on so many levels. Your words reveal your genuine, authentic self and the emotions you illicit are what we have all experienced on some level or another. Thanks for sharing this post.