Scarlet Woman

I am a woman in heartbreak.

It’s a crack down an old wound and it hasn’t festered so that’s good. But it still hurts.

It’s a lesson, I tell myself. I’m struggling to learn it, though. I started this year resolving to learn gentleness, be gentleness and already I have broken that twice. I have lashed out, I have let my words, my worst, most potent allies run ahead of me. And then I smashed it.

But I’m realising I’m Scarlett O’Hara pining for the virtues of Melanie Wilkes. Well, I’m not a character in a book set in whatever script has been laid out for me (please don’t talk to me about the frightful sequel). But for now, the way to gentleness seems to lead me further into my own raw, animalistic, volatile nature. I must embrace it, I must accept it. I must stop suppressing it or it will burst out again as it has these two times. And I cannot have that. Fire must be tempered.

There was goodness. I got to do things that I have been too cautious, too fearful to do for years. One notable thing was writing for him. The first time I ever wrote for another person was over a decade and a half ago, for the person who first told me my writing was special. He hurt me and then he turned my writing into a trophy Both hurt me in ways I could not articulate then, the second must be worse. I never wrote for another person after that (or at least I’ve never let them know). But that’s limiting, isn’t it? Love, affection, pain, anger, rage, jealousy – each of these are colours to be expressed and my palette is screaming oil paint. I wrote something I really like. And I think the person it was written for, liked it too. Pretty sure he did. 🙂

Now, I realised most men cannot handle this. I think I burn most men out emotionally. At least the kind of men I’m drawn to, the brooding introverts, the shy thinkers, I imagine they have depth but even they don’t seem to have enough. Well, they are mostly paper and straw; they go so easily. Still, there is hope. Maybe this man was not meant to be the one hearing my words. If there are words created and a mind to build them then there must be the ears and heart to receive them too, somewhere in the world. Someday, I’ll meet someone who is warmed by my fire instead of being burnt by it.

Till then, bright red words will drop from my fingers and my lips for everyone and everything in this world. Because that is how I am.