Dead Man Walking

Yeah, time just slips away

I live life like a renegade drifter
Losing myself on the open road
Running from the pains of a sinner
‘Cause ain’t no Band-Aid for a broken soul

The Devil’s steady tearing out the best of me
Screaming “fair game” but he must’ve lied
‘Cause now there ain’t too much left of me
But I ain’t slowing down until I’m justified

‘Cause I done been steady swingin’
At the bottom of a hangman’s rope
Maybe it’s a sad plan dreaming, I’m a madman screaming
But I can’t stop believing there’s hope, oh Lord

Like a dead man walking back from the grave to find where I went wrong
Everything I love is dead and gone
Every night I sing this dead man’s song
I got hell on a trigger, got a bottle of Jack and I’m right where I belong
Stuck in between heaven and being dead wrong
So from here until I’m dead and gone
I’m a dead man walking

This life has got me barely holding by a single thread
Gripping on my pistol, squeezing triggers until my finger’s red
A lot of folks they like to judge, nudging then they hang their head
Hypocrites that don’t give a shit
No common sense don’t bring the dead

Name calling and pointing fingers and laying blame don’t bother me
As long as y’all don’t touch me, my family and my property
My prophecy wasn’t prodigy, in the ground I’ll probably be
But I’m standing up and I’m raisin’ hell so won’t you come and follow me?

I’m a cornered up, pissed off, cracker in a cage
Get you one coin missed call, take it to the grave
I guess I’ll take the mask off and let you judge me
But the looking didn’t last long ’cause bitch I’m ugly

I can’t blend in, eyes cut you to the bone
Now my covers been blown, I’m supposed to be alone
Like a hairpin trigger kill, I don’t know we’re wrong
But I keep singing this song and I’m stuck under a stone

Like a dead man walking back from the grave to find where I went wrong
Everything I love is dead and gone
Every night I sing this dead man’s song
I got hell on a trigger, got a bottle of Jack and I’m right where I belong
Stuck in between heaven and being dead wrong
So from here until I’m dead and gone
I’m a dead man walking

~Crucifix

It’s been an absurd amount of time since I’ve written. I’m sitting in our basement, trying my damndest to write with these long ass acrylic fingernails. I’ve never done more than paint my nails. Now I’ve got fake ones, painted a pretty shade of my favorite color, pink. I suppose it’s a perfect symbol of what my entire existence feels like, these days. Fake. At work, I fake happy smiles, as I make small talk with customers and coworkers alike. I’ve made lots of “friends”. They tell me all about themselves, and their lives. I don’t share myself, though. In fact, I don’t let anyone in. Not even my husband, really. He sees more than anyone else does, but I can’t seem to fully open myself up. The only way I make it through each day, is by compartmentalizing. I hold all of my secrets, my worries, my struggles inside. And, I keep them neatly tucked into separate spaces in my mind, because that’s what keeps me sane. That’s how I make it through the day. It’s the only way I can show up to work and be the person they’re expecting to see. It’s how I’m able to come home, fix supper for my family, and be the wife and mama they need me to be. I wouldn’t call myself depressed. It’s more like I don’t even know who the hell I am. I’m not me. This isn’t my home. Those aren’t my kids. That’s not my husband. I’m in some fucked up alternate universe, where things look familiar, but aren’t the same at all. We’ve redone our kids’ rooms. Adam and I got a new bed. We replaced all our old ugly doorknobs with new ones. They’re “antique bronze”, what I’d been wanting. We also replaced our kitchen cabinet handles with fancier black ones. We moved Mikayla down to her dorm, at the University of Tennessee, in August. She comes home every other weekend. She facetimes me most every day, too. She has a real hard time leaving, every time her weekends at home come to an end. It breaks my heart to see her cry so hard. I LOVE that she wants to spend time with us, but I hate how difficult it is for her to leave. MJ is in therapy, now. She has had a hard time with all these changes, too. All of my babies are hurting. They’re struggling, same as I am. Same as Adam is. So, I have to be strong and brave.

In June, I spent three and a half hours alone in my car, parked on some back road in Kentucky. I sat there sobbing, clutching my Smith and Wesson handgun, and fighting with myself about whether to pull the trigger. I had turned off the location on my phone, because I didn’t want it to be my family who had to find me. Obviously, I didn’t follow through. That was the moment that pushed me to begin my job search. I told myself I needed purpose. On my very first day at my job, I learned the password to our computers. It’s “YouHavePurpose”. Kind of ironic, huh? I sometimes think, maybe in an alternate universe, I DID pull the trigger that day. What if I actually did die, that day? Is the person I was gone? How do I wrap my head around this new version of who I am, who my family is, and what my life looks like?

Adam is very aware that I’m hurting, and it’s clear that I haven’t been myself. Whoever that was? He lets a whole bunch of stuff slide. Except, once. There was one morning, about a month or so ago, when even this new me crossed too far over the line. It was early, and we were arguing in the kitchen, over a stupid coffee cup. I got so frustrated, I told him, “fuck you”. Later that morning, when I was at work, he had text me. His text mentioned consequences for talking to him that way. I won’t pretend I wasn’t nervous. I wound up getting stuck at work for nearly an hour past close, which made Adam worry. I imagine that worry did soften him, at least a little bit. His anger had melted away, as had mine, by the time we arrived home. Still, I got spanked pretty hard. Adam sat with me first, and really listened to MY side of what went wrong that morning, though. He genuinely wanted to understand, and took the time to do so. Then, he spanked me. After, I had slid off his lap, down to the floor. My arms wrapped tightly around his legs, and I rested my head down into his lap for awhile. He played with my hair, as he spoke softly to me. He did understand what he had said to upset me, and apologized, but reminded me I didn’t need to have been disrespectful. I looked up at him and told him I felt HE had been disrespectful to ME! In his calm and gentle voice, he insisted he hadn’t cussed me. He was right. He has never once said “fuck you” to me, or yelled at me. I was left with no further arguments to make regarding that morning’s ridiculous incident. Just a couple weeks ago, there was one other instance that typically would’ve earned me a sore behind. I had forgotten to do something important, and it cost us. However, Adam recognized I’d been having an even harder time than has become normal. As Summer turns into Fall, it can be a very difficult time for me. Sights and smells throw me back to other buried memories that will suddenly resurface, unexpectedly. Even the most basic, simple daily tasks had become huge obstacles for me. I’d been having a rough time, and he knew it. As we stood together in the shower, I opened up to him. I put words to the hurt and the heaviness I was carrying. I also told on myself, about this thing I’d neglected to get done. Adam held me in his arms, as I fought the tears that streamed down my face. It feels GOOD, letting things out. Sharing myself with my husband. I hesitate, though, because I just don’t want to add any more weight to what he is carrying. I desperately want to find my way back to me. He didn’t punish me, that night. I understood that pass wasn’t because he was afraid or because he didn’t mind my mistake. It was because he loves me, and it hurts him that I hurt. It wasn’t a time to be harsh. I needed him to hold me, to hear me, even if I wasn’t able to clearly communicate what was behind the tears and frustration and upset I had been experiencing. He knew I was sincere, and he knew what was truly needed that night. Adam is a good man. He’s amazing, and I love him so much. It kills me to hear anybody say different.

Still, I’m lonely as hell. I’m trying my best to be okay, without. Without so much of what mattered to me. Without Jackie. I can’t rebuild or replace what we had. Or, what I believed to be true, anyway. Every piece of me aches over what I’ve had to say goodbye to. I’m not sure how to be okay. I just keep faking it, hoping and praying that one day I won’t have to. Someday, I can be okay again. Life is moving on, but I feel like I’m stuck. Hours turned to days. Days became weeks. Weeks have become months. Yet, I’m still trapped somewhere in between then and now. I watch as the seasons change, as my children have grown, as time marches on. Part of me wishes I could rewind, while another wishes to fast forward. I just want out of this grief, loss, and intense pain. My God I want to find my way back to the me I was so content with. Some days, it’s like being forced to stand in the rain, and then put inside a cold room, unable to remove the soaked clothes I’m wearing. I literally feel as if I’m crawling out of my skin. I do have some okay days. I think I do. It’s never going to be the same, and I recognize that. I can’t simply be okay about it, though.

I haven’t sat down in front of my laptop, and written my thoughts in a long while, because it hurts to have to acknowledge them. I want to fake it for the sake of this blog that I’ve built here, but I can’t do that. It hurts to be authentic, but it’s killing me doing all this pretending. If I’m not already dead? I don’t know anymore. Whoever I am, this is “me” tonight.