Shards of an Amethyst Heart (Flame Trees #3)

I have been sitting on this blog entry for a couple of weeks, too emotionally decimated to post it. It’s salience has diminished somewhat, but I think it’s important for you all to read this.

I have been intermittently crying from much of the last few days. Every time I attempt at a start to the blog I dissolve. They are not sobs, but gentle tears just coursing down my cheek every few moments. My mind is all over the place, has been for weeks now.

My dreams have returned to lace my quiet hours. Vistas of allegory entwine with riddles, memories and desires. I often wake from them in a cold sweat. And lying awake until all hours does nothing to keep them at bay. If I am stressed I actually fear sleep. It’s 25 to 2 on Monday morning right now, and it doesn’t look like I will be stamping my passport at the Land of Nod any time soon. And I have to be at work in 6 hours.

I last remember looking at the clock at 3.55 am.

The second of the “insomnia” twins is me being a late-night worrier. I can cannibalise my own thoughts in moments. Tangents, scenarios, hypotheticals, inconsequential shit. I can match it with the best of them. Even outdo some of the best of them. This is one of those moments where I am saving myself from devolving into a complete emotional wreck. Trust me that I will be in tears by the time I am done here. Maybe you will too. But know that I am OK. This is my release.


Last night I dreamt that I was in a far-off land. But it was not the fantasy world of harp-playing cherubs, the songs of sirens and saccharine coloured perfection. It was gritty, hardened and entirely bleak. Ominous? You bet. I could taste the bitumen and smell the life around me. I was stood in the middle of a road, frozen with ice and caked in snow. The sky pitch black and starless, I stood sucking on a cigarette at some ungodly hour.

As an aside, I only smoke when I am stressed or hopelessly drunk. The reality is that I have not been anywhere near a cigarette in months.

Winter here is achingly cold. Much colder than anything I have experienced. The thin and bony fingers of Jack Frost burrowed deep into me beneath my clothes and clutched my heart. In spite of the chill, its pulsations echo in my chest. Dread filled me. Clutching at my heart so is indicative of one thing: I am about to die a death of a thousand icicles.

The steady thunder of horse’s hoofs became louder...


I am stood in a doorway, accompanied at close quarters by a young woman whose face is concealed by a voluminous cowl. But a few brunette tresses have escaped, giving me my only clue. Aristocratic, manicured fingers caress my neck. They might as well be razor blades. It would be a damned sight more comfortable.

I make to say something, but no sound emanates from my mouth. It feels like an age passes before I get a flash of the reflected light in her eyes.

The voice in my head repeats her name. The most beautiful beryl eyes in the world sweep across my face. No girl has ever managed to weaken me so easily. I could feel my innards liquefy as she edged closer, our lips mere inches from one another. I dare not. Her tongue flicked over full pink lips. I remember the smell filling my nostrils. I could feel her urging. Kiss me.

I cannot. I will not. I must not. It is not a question of my desire. I wish for it more than anything in the world, but at the same time a simple kiss has a sense of finality about it, and I do not wish for that. Maybe this is one of those instances where the fantasy is better than the reality. This is why I have to go. I am wounded and the pain of not being there is unbearable.

I have become the man I promised myself I would not. And that frightens me. For weeks I have not recognised the loathsome and petulant simian who stares back at me from the bathroom mirror. This miserable nuisance that I used to call my life, and do so with some degree of affection, has been tainted. Yet at the same time … I cannot believe that something that used to bring me so much pleasure could be so poisonous.

I never wanted the great Shakespearean romance for the ages, it’s not my style. Just knowing that my care was reciprocated – at some level – was more comfort than I would have asked for. Deep down, deep, deep down I knew that your honey-softened lilting whispers into my ears were wishes – inchoate. It didn’t stop me from believing – nay, gorging myself on – each sweet syllable. Fool! Well, if I’m a fool for you, then that’s something.

Barely a day goes by where I do not think of you: even if it is only for a moment. Asking not to think of you is akin to asking Augustus Gloop to go a day without chocolate. I can lose myself for minutes. The thought of you induces a smile, sad though it may be, it is a smile nonetheless.

I’m trying my hardest to subdue the lump I feel swelling in my throat. The falcon-like gaze from your ravening eyes now steels onto me. Oh, those fucking things! How I hate them! Yet of all your charms they are my favourite: and overwhelmingly so. Her arms snake over my shoulders. It’s too much. I shrug her off.

Delving into my coat pocket, I pull a small piece of jewellery. An amethyst glints in the dim light. Your words slice through me. “Can you cut a diamond?” I replied to you then that I possessed neither the malice nor desire to refine something that I already viewed as perfect. Nothing has changed, and I doubt it ever will.

I don’t really understand the female fascination with diamonds. Perhaps somebody could explain it to me. The symbolism behind an amethyst is far more significant.

A mirthless smile comes to my lips as I appreciate the incongruity of Mozart’s Pachabel Canon in D Minor rising from my iPod as I type. Fucked over by irony again as I think of you! A slender hand slips into mine, plucking the amethyst from my hand. She kisses it and presents back to me.

“Precious, precious.”

Comments

I don't get it. :confused: You're cold and upset because you tried to pass an amethyst off as an engagement ring to your girlfriend; and she gave it back to you. I can understand why that would be distressing. What I don't understand is why you chose an amethyst rather than the more culturally and socially accepted diamond?
 
Amethyst symbolizes, in at least one of the languages of gemstones, passionate thought. At one time, amethyst was thought to prevent drunkenness, and the maddness that sometimes accompanies such. It is also associated with the astrological signs of Pisces, Aries (especially the violet and purple variety), Aquarius, and Sagittarius. It is a symbol of heavenly understanding, and of the pioneer in thought and action on the philosophical, religious, spiritual, and material planes.

Where as Diamonds because of their nature, tend to imply the vow they symbolise to be unbreakable. To me, because I knpw what diamonds are made of, and I know the conflicts they seem to inspire... I would not wish to use one as a token of my affections.


For you see, Diamond is compressed carbon. Carbon is the element that is the primary building block for all living things in our world. so each tiny diamond is made out of hundreds of ancient plants and animals, long dead and compressed and changed from flesh to oil, from oil to coal, and then from coal to diamond. The violence and ill feeling associated with diamonds also lowers them in my esteem. They inspire greed and averice in folk. Girls who won't marry their swain until he can afford a ring with an apprecibly sized diamond in it. Folks who kill or steal for diamonds. Folks who are worked near to death to harvest diamonds from the earth for others who get rich off the avarice of others. As For that unbreakable thing? If the vows were trully become unbreakableby adding a diamond to the symbol for them? There would be a lower divorce rate in most places.

So for me, give me a stone that speaks to me, if stone you give me at all. Give me a ring of hardenned wood, with time frozen in a drop of amber, should you give me a ring that once was alive. Give me a ring laced with the ashes of your ancestors with the tradition that a pinch of our ashes be added to it once we pass from this world. Give me a ring of obsidian and fire opal for protection and for dreams. Give me a ring of emerald, saphire or ruby for my wedding band, a greater twin to whatever stone that symbolizes our intention to join in troth.

But never give to me a diamond, lest I flee for fear of vows that swallow and cage me in luxurious chattelage unto thine will and thy pocketbook. I would rather win or be won by the words and deed and passions, rather than a token we could ill afford.
 

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