Black & White Cat

This is a post for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

She was afraid that the truth could be more damaging than the lie.
Sometimes it was as though the lies just seemed to come tumbling out faster than she could think.
It was perhaps the irrational fears that caused her to avoid the truth over and over.
The process of thinking and rethinking everything, trying to come to terms with it all, fear of decisions, fear of being indecisive, fear of doing nothing at all, or worse still, fear of doing it wrong.
Maybe what scared her the most was the thought that maybe, just maybe, she was lying to herself;
she wasn’t what she thought, and she certainly wasn’t what others thought her to be.
Maybe everything she believed and everything she said was nothing more than a worn-out promise that was no longer relevant.
She was the one-hit wonder; the catchy tune that changed forms rapidly, easily forgotten until a dimly-lit bar suddenly brought it all back to you.
She was the hideous red and yellow scarf in the back of your closet, the ugly reminder of the fact that there was a part of your life less fashionable that was better left forgotten.
But then perhaps she wasn’t the only one lying.
Maybe their own little white lies were swooping down on them aswell.
And like running uphill, eventually the stupidity of it all was going to catch up with them until everything burned and they couldn’t sustain their dishonest life any longer.
And then their own creations would be causing them to stop just short of their achievements without any help from those around them, (who just ran on fuelled by their so-called honest lives) leaving them with the taste of blood in their mouths and a feeling of exhaustion that wouldn’t even allow them to gasp, “This is awful.”
But for her the lies all started with that first kiss.
And they’d surely compounded by the time she had that second first kiss.
When all the little white lies had surely started to change form for the worse.
When she’d finally decided that life was worth truly living again, but hadn’t yet grasped the best way to end the life she was previously immersed in.
When she knew that all these bad habits had to stop, but realised that they’d done too much damage in this part of her life for there to be anything but a completely fresh beginning.
When all her heart’s whining for something more nourishing had suddenly become too much and she had to listen to herself.
When everything that had once appealed to her was becoming older, greyer and more repulsive every day.
The morning she woke up and realised that if there were anymore of this, the headaches would turn to migraines and she’d never sleep again, she knew for sure she had to do something.
After all, there was more than enough masculinity in her life. And even though her inbox was so easily erased, her conscience was not. But when even the half-truth finally left her lips the anger that was hurled back at her was ten-fold.
And then all she wanted was for the lights to turn out again so she could at least pretend that no one could see the slightest fragment of truth.
But all that hatred turned inward could amount to was a lot of emotional bullets fired at her already confused mind. And all the half-truths could do was yo-yo her state of mind back and forth, blue and confused, twisted and used, providing no more clarity than a total lie.
It wasn’t until after a drawn out battle with herself that the truth came out and she was able to nurse the wounds that she sustained.
The abrupt switch from a life built on lies to one founded on truths turned her male-driven life on its head. And the remains of such a life would leave her with more than a little bruising.
But as the bruising eased, and the time passed, she realised that the white lie she left behind which started off so innocent before progressively greying, had been in fact a lot muddier than she had ever previously let herself believe.
Behind the curtain, the lie wasn’t such a big reveal after all, just three dirty words that used to be truth; I love you.