He is dying,

and he plays.

He is dying, and he talks more every day. Little chirps and trills to his sister, and to me- calls and purrs.

He is dying, and he asks for food, and he delights in it.

I am living, healthy – and I want to die.
I can’t eat.

I look at the new love my old “love” has found- and she is exactly what I was tortured with for four long years. In every single superficial aspect. Tall. Blonde. Big boobs. Big lips. Ruthless. “Ladylike at all costs.” Barbie. Sleeping Beauty. “Disney Princess.” “Important” connections. 1950’s housewife ideations. Hates feminism. Impeccable mask at all times. Skirts and high heels. Expensive, designer frou-frous everywhere, ruffles and kittens, princess parties and WASP pride.

My heart mourns what I thought we had – and now know I was alone the entire time, believing I was appreciated at all. Believing I was seen. Believing I could be beautiful to someone who worships at the los angeles altar of enormous artificial enhancements, bright blonde dye job, thin body, expensive lifestyle and cheap values, only the rich matter, and smug, superior confidence. Booze and Limos. Names dropped as often as possible along the gilded road paved with lies. Smiles, hugs, and daggers in the back. Divorces not yet complete, “love” finding immediate foothold in the unavailable, hidden, and growing like a mold.

Growing like the cancer that is eating the boy who has been true to me and honest his entire life.

I was never beautiful to the man I loved.
I looked for God here, anyway. I told myself that beauty wasn’t everything and looked for God – and my heart shattered every day when it could find nothing natural, nothing honest, nothing straightforward, nothing truly kind.

There is no God here in this place, there is no natural, no real, I thought. I kept trying. I kept forgiving. I kept bringing my authenticity and my heart. I kept praying. I kept breaking, when all would seem well, all would seem like it had been lovely, and then I’d hear what was said behind my back.

I was willing to learn about the Christian God, and yet I was turned away again and again as being inferior, not good enough, not right, somehow. This is, and has always been, my experience of the Christian God -his followers do not want me in their club.

And yet He was with me all along. In the purrs I took for granted, and the melting copper eyes that gazed into mine with such loyalty. Caught up in trying to win any scrap of approval from a man who could not love me, the care of the one who was true became a daily chore. A duty, a task.
Yes, there were moments I appreciated Figaro. Yes, of course I did. But it was all subsumed in the hurt upon hurt – in trying to fit where I wasn’t accepted.

I was told all along I wasn’t wanted. Like the diamond I was given – everyone of his people told me it wasn’t wanted. No one wanted it, either, poor thing. I was given a list of people who had declined it. By the time it was given to me, it was a discarded, unappreciated stray cat, just like me. It had been found in a teacup. I felt a kinship with this sparkly little stone, sitting there unregarded for God only knows how long. Turned down, snubbed, and looked at with disdain.

I saw the warmth in it and I loved it. Warmth that would have been hidden if it could be- “you can make it look more white, more valuable, by setting it like so,” said the jeweler.

No. I love the warmth. I do not think white is more valuable. I don’t think platinum or blonde is more valuable, either. I do not care if warmth shows that this diamond is not as valued by society.
A society that values coldness is not a society that values me, either, and so this diamond found the right home.

I was given in a promise that “no matter what happened,” it was for me, and the promise, like all the others, was rescinded, just as soon as it was no longer convenient. Just like me- discarded when no longer convenient. Thank you for your service. Palmed off with lies. I believed, so I protected. I believed, so I colluded in creating the mask.

Words and promises mean nothing here on this strange, artificial planet.

Nothing real, nothing healthy, and nothing deep can grow here.

I knew beauty was the only thing that mattered here, and so I cried myself to sleep every night.
Every night I could have looked at my boy, and seen his love. Every night wasted on los angeles.

I gave years of my life to this. I worked hard to finally be “Enough,” to finally, at last, be someone he could love.
It was foolish. I could never be.
She is all that, and he loved her immediately. Talks about marrying within a few weeks.

And I want to die. I can’t understand a God who would nod at this kind of torture for a heart and soul like mine – my only mistake was that I thought if I loved enough, if I was loving and forgiving, giving and kind, he and his family would eventually see and value my heart.

My heart broke over and over again on the jagged rocks of soulless Lost Angeles. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to see it.
And I want to die.

I eat less, and I shrink. I don’t feel hunger, and I don’t feel any pain worse than the pain my heart carries.

And my boy, who has been here the entire time, who has tried to tell me,

is dying. He celebrates his moments, and I watch him- and I learn.

I try, again and again, to do the Jedi thing of taking on his illness and giving him my life. I want him to live. I want to die.

He basks in the sun. He kisses my hand with abandon, and purrs. He stretches his feet in sheer pleasure when he’s taking a nap and feels comfortable. When he’s not coughing. When his coughing is over, he looks up at me, and purrs, his lungs still bubbling.

He must sense my sadness as I type, because he’s put his paw on my leg, and asked to come sit in my lap.
I’ve put his basket back in his old spot, so he can supervise my work, and he purrs, his tail brushing my fingers.

This is what is true. God was in this place, and I – I did not see it.