Remembrances of past, to explain my now...
To my Emerald Knight,
When I first accepted the position to be yours, a former wench of yours contacted me in urgency. She sought to warn me of you and your ways. Among her many cautions she told me a tale, a tale of a time when you left her for a damsel more fair. The fair damsel rejected your advances and you retreated back to the aforementioned wench. She continued on to a similar story, of an occasion when you visited a wanton friend and sought her comfort instead of the one you belonged to. Why? How could you do this? You already had someone you were supposed to care after, but you left her for some other more salacious promiscuous serpent in the tall dead grass, because it was what you wanted at the time, and she was what you wanted. You are, in short she said, a slave to your body and it’s urges, and thereby could not be trusted. Her argument was difficult to disagree with to be sure.
The girl who wrote me many a letter, wished also to alert me to the fact that you wouldn’t care for who I was and were known to be neglectful to your maidens. And that you were all about the superficial and physical, never seeking for a beauty within.
I appreciated her, for looking out for others of her kind, but I knew you too. She was right, and her description of you fit with my firsthand interactions with you. But I also knew you saw your errors and wished to change. You knew you were lost and alone and would ever be lacking if you continued on your path of destruction.
And yes, I can shamefully admit it was out of pity, sympathy, and empathy that I accepted your offer. I knew what it would be like, and I knew my mission. I sought to be the good mark on your resume, the one person who could vouch for you as a chivalrous gentleman, for the wench who contacted me was one of a few, and only one of a great many to warn me about you. You had no one to speak well of you. You were lost, and I knew I could help you. It was a self-less expedition I was embarking on, for you had nothing to offer me, nothing of value. You were a mission, something I hadn’t intended to last. Loving you was a choice I made, but isn’t it always? The first months were as I had expected, filled with pain. I suffered while you began to grow and thrive. Your self-centered ways, though they rapidly changed, left me alone in dark pain and inky tears for quite some time. You were neglectful, but you were learning… everything was new to you, and I could not blame you for what you did not know.
Blur forward through time, and you have grown more beautiful than when I first knew you. There will ever be pruning to be done, but you are so much more than you were a year ago. Plans changed and you did not take the path you had intended, and I did not take mine. Now I am very much in love with you like I never thought I would be. We are quite taken with one another and committed to bridging the physical distance that separates our passion.
On one such journey bridging our normal distance, you said something you thought funny by picking up a lens and observing a perfect imperfection. Well just my luck, the comment stuck and sent a dagger to my heart.
Now everyone knows not to pull out such things as daggers, for one would bleed to death. What would I fill the hole with and who would be there to sew me back up? So I leave it in and instead feel it’s pang when I move and occasionally a little blood seeps through.
Like the tale of Adam and Eve I feel. It was not until they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they realized they were naked. Then they became ashamed. And it was not until I had you, you who mean the world to me, that I was made aware of my imperfections, and now it is I who am ashamed. I realize now I must have been mistaken all these years, and that I must not be as beautiful as I thought I was.
Perhaps it was unhealthy, but I felt so good all those years before. Never did I struggle with appearance or traits. I ever felt the most beautiful, the envy of many. I miss my blue flamingo for this, he had the art of making me feel like he’d uncovered the world’s greatest treasure every day he had me, and scarce an arrow did he shoot in my direction. I never thought twice or doubted his words, it was clear there was no other meaning and I ever felt enamored by him. I was proud to belong to him. But you, you are different and your words are not the same.
It was all a joke to you, and I did my best to laugh at the time, but now I can’t shake the thought… the “what if…?” The fact there is truth at the root of every joke, the fact of your past and what might be leeching on your core. Perhaps you would like me more, if I could fix the flaws you noted. Perhaps I could increase the likelihood you’ll keep me if I were better and prettier than I am now.
I can’t deny the seed your former wench planted, the seed you fed, the seed I grew. It has grown into this weed that I cannot seem to uproot. Your comments are its runners, causing new plants and verifying the doubts I carry.
I spent many sleepless nights wondering if perhaps you had not changed like I thought. I lay in stunned silence thinking about what you have said, ‘and at once I knew, I was not magnificent…’ (Bon Iver, Holocene).
What if some one else walks by, and she looks better under your lens? Would you leave me for her? All my compasses whisper yes. I close the pillow over my ears and squeeze tight mine eyes, but their voices penetrate my barriers.
Worry and fear. Worry and doubt. Worry, and sleepless nights. What can little me do? I was once told this, concerning men and faithfulness, that men wouldn’t go out for fast food if they had prime rib at home. It’s me. It all lies with me. What if I were more brilliant than they? What if I could make myself so magnificent that you would never notice another, never turn your head for a second glance at them and so magnificent you would never again cringe at something of me? I could do this… I cannot fix all of what you have mentioned, some parts of me are fixed in place and measure, but others are not, and it is those and more that I will transform for you. Then, yes then, perhaps you will have nothing left to dislike, nothing left to mention and it is I who will be most beautiful. So I began the process of “fixing” me. I will make myself a prize, something you can be proud of. I will be the best life could offer you, and there’s no way you would want to discard of me. I’ll be your prime rib and be your beloved.
You have ignited a fire within me, and I will fight for this. ‘Don’t underestimate the things that I will do’ for you, the lengths I will go to keep you mine. I’m doing everything you suggest, I feel I’m hardly eating and I’m running myself into the ground. Your passions I absorb and learn everything I can that interests you. I participate in all I can and commit all you say to memory. I’m buying clothes you said you like and doing my hair the way you prefer. I’m scrubbing my skin raw and spraying chemicals in the hopes my blemishes will vanish. I take the razor to my skin and scrape off layers of ugly.
Am I magnificent yet?
It is a long process, and there are ever things to add to my list. So now I put on my war paint before I see you, and Photoshop the pictures I send you. I am hyperaware of every motion and appearance when in your presence. You are not as easily satisfied and I never feel I measure up.
You remarked I’m highly inflexible. Ah, this too I can fix! I stretched daily, took up yoga and read up on what’s rated to be the most complex and exotic forms. I polled my friends and compared abilities and found that I can accomplish more than they. Surely now I will be good enough. But alas, you are unimpressed, fail to notice and continue to comment on my inflexibility. My fire of passion is turning to fire of anger and if you continue to stoke me I may just burn you out. Who was this contortionist you have lain with? And what chimerical acts did she perform that I cannot? Is there nothing I can do that interests you? Ah yes that… but is that enough to rank me above the others? I know it’s not. So I try my best and am ever procuring more to add, new things to wear and forms to take. I perform the things I despise if only it would bring you happiness, but alas I cannot live up to the wenches of your past.
Am I magnificent yet?
There is more I can do, I know secrets others do not, and I have heard whispers of tricks one can procure. I make up my mind, I am committed you see, and you underestimate me. First chance I get I make a small journey. After much research, I find the right medicine woman and fib about my reasons. I request a certain potion to cure my needs, and she willingly fulfills it and even offers to increase its strength due to my "circumstances". I leave with my daily supply of poison in hand, and first chance I’m alone, I expeditiously consume. It must be done quickly, before I have opportunity to rethink. Now there is no turning back and the deed is done. As it travels down and absorbs into my being, I hope to soon experience the side effects (for it is those that I am aiming for) so I can halt consumption of this poison once the effect is complete. This, surely must make me more desirable.
Am I magnificent yet?
There are these and more. The full lengths I have gone to you will likely never completely know or understand.
I’m starting to cave under your quixotic expectations. I don’t like myself anymore and feel trapped in my own personal winter. I only wanted to be wanted, wanted by you. I only wanted to be needed, needed by you. But ‘you can’t see me like I see you. I can’t have you like you have me…’
I knew I needed to be honest, and you knew something was amiss. I confessed my actions and poured forth some secrets I had kept hidden.
You are displeased and insist your comments were not sincere and had no meaning, that they do not really matter. Then why do you mention their kind so much so often? What is the significance if they have no meaning? You cannot shrug off this matter so easily, and your words I find difficult to believe in its entirety. I fail to see your actions align with your tongue.
You scoff at my “faux diet”. You mock me. “Faux”? No, I think not. The pain I suffered was real and the actions I took were extreme, and the inches I lost and have kept away were all very legitimate. There was nothing unreal about what happened. Are you laughing at my pain? My inefficacious attempts at living up to the impossible standards I feel you’ve set?
“Take your poison and away with you!” you said to me. I crumple under your words. You dismiss me. Can you not see the cuts you’ve made? The pain I feel? I don’t enjoy what I do, and I shudder every time I consume.
Look at what I do to me! I am sacrificing myself for you, but you do not see. Who else would give this much for you? Give everything for the weak hope of keeping you and ever belonging to you? All I wanted was to be desired by you, longed for, treasured, needed, liked and loved. I only wanted to be your everything, perfect for you, so you’d never look elsewhere, to be secure that you are mine and I am your one and only beloved.
And after all of this… these events and discussions, you never once asked me to stop consuming my poison.
‘And at once I knew, I was not magnificent…’
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