There’s a Stranger in my bed

I have days when I wake up happy. And days when I wake up sad. I have moments when my mind is so consumed by stories of people who have never existed, yet are alive in my head. Worlds unknown consume my being, familiar faces of strangers I have never met beckon me and insist I release them to the world. Shadows follow me in both light and darkness.

Then there are days when I have to deal with the living. The look in their eyes and the stories they would rather remained untold. The stories their bodies tell, willy-nilly. The way they stand, walk, touch their hair or wet their lower lip, the raging pulse as I deliberately brush my hand against their arm, the faraway look in their eyes, the dilated pupils, their eyebrows as they hit their hairline, the sweaty palms and the quivering lips, how they lean forward or away, how they look down when they should be looking up.

These are raw stories unraveling before me begging to be deciphered into mortal man’s language. These are stories invisible to the average eye yet my mind rejoices at the obvious interpretation. And sometimes ever so erroneously. It’s in the voices too. When words are mere sounds, maybe even noise, and the tones and intonations carry the message. When phrases turn into full sentences and their attention averted. A slight touch to the sleeve, game over. Where others hear silence I hear whispers of words unspoken and desires unquenched. And then nothing.

These roads aren’t just paved or dusty. They tell stories of years of struggle, a people’s plight, à revolution, and a dictatorship guised as democracy. There’s liberty out here in these crowded streets. Still I wonder if anyone can see the prisoners held in chains by their own phones, careers, and the things they claim to love that will never love them back. The patrons here at my local pub aren’t mere passersby or strangers seeking a rest stop and a quench to the throat. They all have stories that my mind insists on unraveling. These are settings waiting to be explored by an adventurous plot, scenes to be immortalized on paper and remembered to times indefinite. This is my land. And these are my people. I’ve walked these roads before.

I have a lover in my bed who demands the very essence of my being. My body he wanted and got, yet he insists on devouring me to my core. I welcome his lust with both pleasure and reluctance. For the price I pay in this dwelling is not anywhere close to the disappointment he will soon face with unmet expectations. There was never a damsel in distress here, only a heroine with villainous tendencies.

Behold! There’s another lover on my kitchen table, but it’s not the fire from my stove he wishes to contain. He flinches not when I touch him, as he surreptitiously tries to drown my flame with everlasting heavenly kisses. An unholy union of fire and ice, a devils delicacy. Burn. I have a lover in my head who wishes for a place in my heart. The crowd in my head overwhelms him, he says. He cannot compete against wonders without bounds. How is he to know that some contenders were born with trophies in their hands. They need not step onto the field for a race already won. My lover wishes to tame the heart capable of feeling every emotion ever known to man, except for the ones it needs to keep beating. Oh yes, I used to have a lover in my bed. And a beating heart too.

I’m hot and cold, I’m high and low. I’m here and there, I’m alive and dead. There’s never an equilibrium for the ones who run with wild horses. My baby sister thinks me a psychotic genius as she stares at me yet again in awe. She’s familiar with the angels and demons in my mind but she can’t pick a side. I remind her, yet again, that I might be on the side of the white fairies, but I’m not one of them. My older sister thinks me a recluse, an indicipherable code. “The sun is out”, she says for the umpteenth time. How will she ever know that I’ve been to more places than she could ever imagine and that I’ve met people that the rest of mankind is yet to meet? How is she to know that I’ve danced with wolves, dined with elfs, fought with knights, rescued damsels in distress, and even consorted with angels in Eden’s very backyard? I have stolen Cupid’s bow and played with Icarus on the edge of the sun. I have fallen from grace with a slight jolt to my Archiles heel. And like a phoenix, I rose from the ashes with a raging soul. See I have two sisters. The light in my darkness. The axis upon which my world revolves.

I wanna be understood. I also wanna be left alone. I wanna live a life on my terms without explanation or excuse. I’m always misunderstood. I wanna be loved, but not to à point of suffocation. I still wanna be left alone. I wanna be embraced, with my wings open wide, ready to take flight into the skies whenever the need arises. But he will always be my home…if he let’s me in. I wanna be held tight. I also need to breathe. There’s a Stanger in my bed. I’m familiar with her bubblegum scented strengths and weaknesses. Yet every now and then she manages to surprise me. She has dreams bigger than mine, and a head as sharp as a razor. But so is her tongue. There are empty pages on her table. At the tip of her pen lies the six letters of her name, yet when she sets it down to write, a mysterious word appears.

Misunderstood.

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