Toni K. Pacini

The place I see is not one that I can take your hand and lead you on a walking tour of. It’s not what is, but rather what was. It´s not what you would see, but what I feel. It lives in the breath that I breathe.

The past whispers in my ear and the flickering scenes dance across the movie screen in my mind’s private theatre. That is why I try so desperately to share it with words and stories, as nothing else remains.

That place, that time, tugs at my heart, sometimes quietly, gently, almost lovingly, but at other times it comes screaming out of the darkness ripping and tearing in a merciless tirade expressing unspent fear, sorrow, and passion.

During these attacks, I have no choice but to allow that place to pull tears from my eyes and shatter the peace that my weary heart so desperately clings to.

The bridges to this place of the past aren’t spent although they smolder, splinter, and collapse in the flames of destruction imposed on them by me, as I continue the on-going battle that I must fight in order to retain my sanity. Their foundations hold and hold, clinging fiercely, fighting desperately to remain.

I need to decide. Shall I continue this fight? Must I finish this job? Will I ever eliminate this place? Will I spend my entire life in this battle? Or, should I build anew on this stubborn bedrock rooted so securely in the past?

I am tired. I want peace and above all else, happiness. The foundation is strong even if it was built in – that place – and the longer I fight, the more stubbornly it holds. I can re-build here. I can build a new place in the ruins of the old. Maybe it is time to recreate? Rewrite?

For some things, some places, there is no description, they defy definition. All words back up in your throat refusing to pass over your tongue, as there are no apt words to lend to hopelessness or emptiness and the uncertainty that inevitably accompanies them. They are self-explanatory or unspoken all together. They have no color, texture, and no unique expression.

So I will recreate, rewrite. I cannot burn the old bridges. They refuse to fall, so I will resurrect them and from their charred remains, I will build a new place and words of description will come easily to me as I will live and love in this place, not merely survive to attempt the telling of a tale.