Betrayal

I suppose like many, I’ve been lied to often in my life. It may disappoint, but it usually doesn’t surprise me. Often I know it’s coming before I ever hear their words. Or as I watch the letters of their sounds float and drift towards my ears. But there’s some that truly surprise. Mostly from those very few I trust with my heart. It can be a simple lie with little consequence, and while that’s not betrayal, even then it’s hard for me to view them the same way. Can’t unwind what transpired. And find what was before is not what follows. My senses expand and begin to focus on them like those many I don’t extend such trust to. I wonder about the whys and what elses, at least my rays of perception start working their magic. And that’s really without any conscious decision, find my energy extending to their soul, which pains me as much for happening as for what it reveals for each of us, and with mourning for the space between us.

The hardest is the larger lie from those I love. More so, their betrayal. Which is different to me than a lie. It carries more weight. There’s an intentional twist of the love I hold for them. It is a true blindspot. One I’ve chosen to shield from shining the light of my senses, for my heart is truly my everything and should that close off, I fear for my very survival.

Today I’m feeling that betrayal. One of the harder ones I’ve felt. Not family, though those threads extend, as for me, their actions fall outside the blindspots. There’s no surprise. Maybe disappointment, though more often just a strange sense of almost comfort in their frequency. Practiced and repeated. So much so it can feel like a soothing sense of ritual.

Today’s betrayal from one I hold such love for is different. It has pierced deeply and my heart bleeds. Can feel my foundation struggling to hold up my wounded soul. And I’m thinking about trust, humanity, our capacity to love, to hurt, to forgive. I can live in my head for times, but that’s not my compass. It never has been. Thoughts are crowded out now by the screams of my soul. And that thunderous pain ripping open the scars of betrayals before as I look for strength to stitch the heart anew.

Can’t capture in this moment all that is burning within, so nodding on over to Malcom to close this thread out-

To me the thing that is worse than death, is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.