It is right that we should part; I feel that deeply in my heart.
We are so different you and me; me and you. I have loved you for so long that even my vivid imagination cannot conceive of another person, another love in my life. We are intertwined like the twisted limbs of a rampant wisteria. At times abundant in uplifting bloom and at others with ill-formed whips waving aimlessly, desperately in the breeze; trying to form a lasting connection to grow along in tandem.
To continue is probably too hopeless; too painful. Yet we look at each other and we see a person who is akin to family. Someone we loved with every breath and someone who can bring us to rage.
How is it possible to merge with another being so completely that there are moments when one cannot be certain where one ends and the other begins? Something so complete and yet we can become moribund by the daily grind of cold porridge and burnt toast.
I listen to our music collection. Songs of the past, songs of now. An eclectic selection that speaks of every mood and emotion. Music speaks to me as it speaks to you. But where you hear the melody, I hear the lyrics. Where you hear the overlaying tapestry of instruments, I hear the mood and the lyrics. Today I heard Gabrielle: “Knew the signs, weren’t right, I was stupid for awhile; swept away by you and now I feel like a fool. So confused, my heart’s bruised” and so on. It seemed that every artist I played had something to say to me on the nature of love and heartbreak.
Will I survive? I suppose so. It is the nature of living to move forward in fits and starts. For my part I know that I will feel like a learner driver kangarooing in the machine of forward motion.
How did we allow the dullness to slither so silently into our Eden, hissing its poison into the quiet corners of our souls? No screaming arguments to kiss and make-up for us. The terse word; the skewering retort were our nemesis. “You burnt the toast – again” or “why must you always let the porridge go cold”? Such little, little words. Such tiny, tiny matters. So bitter, bitter the final result.
When novels speak of pain in the heart I always attribute the words to creative licence. Yet now, my insides seem to swell and feel eager to burst through my ribs. There is real physical pain in my heart. Under my necklace I feel a lumpen substance like a dollop of cold porridge and I’m swallowing an acrid taste so reminiscent of burnt toast.
—Terri Martin
23 June
I've heard Terri read this and it was powerful stuff then but reading it now in my morning solitude ...I am blow away by her use of phrases and metaphors, the mesmerizing rhythm of her story.
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