Kia ora,
I submitted my actual story before, but I forgot to add some context for it.
I am four years out of am abusive relationship, I am grateful to be free. It was a life altering experience for me. I was full of pain and anger for a long time, and those feelings ran deep, but this is subsiding. I have a life long protection order against my ex. I wrote this story just after I left. and I am happy to share my story if it helps anyone feel less alone. It must stop, domestic violence, and I do feel that story sharing is part of stopping it. Coming out of that relationship, I had no idea who I was, and piecing myself back together was and still is challenging and uncomfortable. It is worth every minute, regardless, to feel a return to my self.
SALT
By Jemmie Poppy Nonweiler
Part one: What we give our energy to has the potential to become much bigger than ourselves.
Kia kaha,
Life.
I don’t want to move too much, I am remembering. If I stay very still, I can see it right there.
The tide came in so quickly. There was just us left, sanguine in the sunrise. The others shrieked and ran back up. But not us. Saltwater, steered by angry banners of foam, stormed towards us, over us, through us, between us – and still we sat. Fingers and toes clenching the sand. Just as suddenly the water was drawn back in to whatever makes it pulse. Pulled back to where-ever it begins, to begin again. This time it overtakes me. The baptism of salt on my lips, the stretching of limbs and the spreading of hair – my splayed hands. Floating, to be anchored in the aftermath. Then your touch, and the world was back.
The others mocked us, we were soaked.
Part two: When we separate our bodies in the morning, there is the slap of being born.
Yours cordially,
Oneness.
I read a story once, I can’t remember who it was by now, about two panthers in a forest. They had left the pack to start a family. They tried, but the seasons went by. The male panther got restless. He began, little by little, to wonder. He was just gone a bit more, then a bit more, until suddenly he was just gone. Tearing through the trees, smelling new things – new panthers. It became harder and harder to find his way home, until he couldn’t.
His panther partner waited a while. Time slipped, she wasn’t sure anymore. Had it been a week? A month? She was hungry. She couldn’t wait forever. One afternoon she hauled herself up,
shook herself off. Her fur was dull. Her limbs were heavy. Her eyes were blank. She walked a little.
Every day she walked a little more, finding a warthog here and there, to eat. She reached a clearing one afternoon and lay herself beneath the sun. The heat massaged her limbs. A breeze reached to stroke her cheek. Seasons went by.
On his travels, the male panther caught the scent of this new panther. She smelt like the earth itself. He tracked her, snout to the ground, narrowing her down. Until she was there. Luminous fur. Languid limbs. Lucid eyes.
She tried to say it was her, she knew it was him, as he tore at her neck. He couldn’t hear her, engulfed by his own growls.
After he left, she pulled herself up and padded back through the forest, following the streaks of sunlight as they shot through the leaves. She came across a clearing where a small pond glistened before her.
Captivated, she crept to the edge. She saw her reflection ripple in time with the world behind her. She felt the wind soothe her, and the warmth enfold her. She bowed down to kiss it all.
She kissed her reflection all the way to the bottom of the lake.
***
We hailed a cab back to Newtown, still damp from the sea. The screams of lorikeets and sirens signalling me as I avoided eye contact with the driver. I had to borrow your clothes.
We hadn’t eaten and everything became strange slow motion. I was leaving, wrestling my umbrella off the stand as my breath caught and cracked with the thunder outside. I was thinking of those who were hemmed together by tears, with hearts big enough to burst those same seams. I was sweating. Salt on my lips.
Then, your touch, and the world was back.
Part three: People need stories, let them say what they wish.
Wishing you the best,
Understanding.
I don’t want to move too much.
The coat stand is in half. One piece is underneath the couch. Various jackets are scattered. I like the blue one. The other piece is in your hand. I am thinking of those who are marred with minute incisions, a series of small but wrong decisions scarring hearts. Sealing them over. I had crawled after you, screaming your name. Ripping your shirt as you kicked me away. I wish I could be better. It’s my fault. You say I’m sick. I am sick. I don’t know why you’re the one I want to hold me, even as you hurt me. If you see my face, you won’t want to hurt me. I love you. Come back to me, my husband, I’m whispering to you now. I am remembering the ocean. The tide that came and went. With my tongue I try to push my tooth back to the front. We can’t afford the dentist right now. I feel the blood pour a stream to make a miniature pond on the floor, near my chin. It glistens. Salt on my lips.
Then, your touch.
***
The last time it happened, I was better. I didn’t scream. It all went very slowly. I noticed you like pulling my hair. I miss my extensions, but they always got ruined. I am much heavier now, but your eyes are still electric blue. I try to turn my face, but your fist finds it, anyway. You are angry about something you think I did I year ago. You think I talked to my friends about this, but I hadn’t. I will though. I need to keep calm, and stay focused on every moment, so I understand what’s been happening between us. You said I was sick. I only close my eyes when you’re finished, this time, because I will never unsee this, and so I know we are. I still cling, cling to your morning songs, our shared sunrises, and our cat. You ask me why I can’t just accept that you love me and say that I am sick as my tears now come daily, promptly, without warning. Salt on my lips. I ask you what you think love is, but you don’t answer. We hold tight, only for a while. The mooring of our souls, one silent, spring morning. You weep one night, in your sleep. I stroke your cheek.
***
Part four: I am tidal. Please let me come, and please let me go.
In return, I will expand and deepen you,
Arohanui,
Greif
My friends stand atop a clifftop throwing me a safety rope. Their clear and gentle words fall around me, a sun shower. Soft, full, luminous drops of beauty.
Me and mum walk along the beach and I can see in her face she’s afraid for me. I’m lucky, I know, to be standing on the shoreline, out of the bottomless water.
Mum says she’s been reading books about these things. She marches me to the gym, where I wobble-sob to 80’s songs. Out of nowhere, I remember my favourite colours.
I have gratitude itself because I have support.
I live in a world where I’m fearful of connection, yet I’m compelled to sing in the universal choir. Each voice makes the whole song of humanity. If my fear disconnects me, I forget who I am. I hear the music, but I stop making a sound. I look out in the wider world for notes and keys that are here, inside.
All my life I have fallen out of myself and into other people. I have never known how to love myself. All this time, I was kissing my own reflection. Love can’t be if I don’t feel it for myself.
It all comes and goes, like the tide. I am tidal.
I start to treasure moments alone, sanguine in the sunrise.
Part five: Words are the web of our reality. Choose clear ones, they reflect the light.
Yours faithfully,
Power.
The policewoman taking my statement tells me about the spider and the fly.
The fly is attracted to the sparkly light flickering off the web and goes straight for it.
Suddenly, it is stuck. Like lightening, the spider appears, ready to devour it.
The more the fly struggles, the tighter the web gets.
Sometimes, the fly escapes.
I am anchored in the aftermath. This is going to take time.
Part six: Watching someone grow is the greatest gift bestowed.
Love,
The Self.
I saw a wahine toa at the dairy with a tooth missing and I wonder, as I pass the juicy rhododendrons, what her story is.
I see that wheel of power and control everywhere now, I can’t unsee it. The sum of our world is binary oppositions, and that wheel cuts through everything natural.
There is no such thing as a perfect victim, either. These ideas that strangle the life out of healing, after the leaving has been done.
I’m very happy I did. Leave, I mean. The relief of it is a soft, full, luminous drop of beauty in my core – growing to a roar through my entirety and I can feel myself, present. Right here.
I lift my arms up a little and feel the air support me, just enough to imagine it lifting me right up to touch the falling down clouds.
Salt on my lips. Free.
Jemmie Poppy Nonweiler
