withdrawals

it hasn't hit me yet, what i am losing. i can feel it getting closer and i keep moving away. i'm not ready to face it, to look it's cold dead eyes on square and reckon with loss again. i just can't take it.

so today, until tomorrow, until saturday, i will believe it will be as it was. as it is. though as it is, is not the best it could be. i must remember this. that is my strong tonic at this moment. by opting for delusion, i must reckon with the fact of that delusion, and the fact is, my child would suffer most if we stay.

she can't intimidate me,

my girl said. after telling me all the children would dive into stalls when godzilla would walk into the barn.

except me,

she'd say.

i would just stand there and ignore her

(my approach to godzilla, and i love my girl for being brave enough to hold her ground).

incredulous at these stories, i would tell her,

no adult should try to frighten a child, ever. no adult should ever try to intimidate a child. unless they are not right in the head--and those are the kinds of adults you get away from.

we walked the grounds and looked at the run-down state, such beautiful grounds in their prime, i imagine. the grandstands erect rusted metal, with no boards for sitting and walking.

the screen of the announcer's box flaps in the wind.

looking at discarded metal from grandstands in giant piles. nicole says,

it doesn't take a genius to figure out that that is dangerous. any child or horse could get hurt on that. horseriding is inherently dangerous, the key is, to minimize the dangers. but they don't do that here.

right.

we stood at the paddock where the young thoroughbred and bandit were waiting to come in. i said to nicole,

i am having trouble with someone who can't mend fences. the disarray of these fences, nearly every fence on this property needs tending. is such an outward sign of an inward state.

she looked down the length of the paddock. and said,

yes.

we walked in to get the horses, and bandit was raring to go, the perstering flies are torment at the moment. but i circled him around so nicole could exit first because her thoroghbred doesn't like to wait. or follow.

bandit and i lingered a bit in the field. i moved him from patch of clover to patch of clover. then we went after the ponies.

could you come back for some lessons if you needed to?

things don't tend to end well here, even when you try. a lot of trainers, with followings, have come and gone from here.

(the barns are mostly empty now. just a few horses in barn two, and barn one is mostly full. they are losing most of barn two with nicole's exodus. not because the barn is so small, but because it's so empty.

it doesn't make sense to run off the people who are here.

i mention, but then realize, not much about these folks makes sense. and i feel guilty, somewhat, for not helping minimize the owner's arguments. but if her argument was with my skin color, nothing can be done about that.

so, denial will not work long for me, because my brain won't let me just ignore the facts. i don't want to embrace lies, delusion, it is a bad precedent.

so i will let myself grieve again. for those knights whom i have loved and now will lose in body. they will exist in a place i cannot see, and i will have them, hold them, only in my memory.