via Daily Prompt: Sacred

I am perfectly content about eighty-percent of the time. I am fine with my divorce, fine that I am alone, fine that I am the only one raising three children in my home.

But that other twenty percent? Well…not so much.

I imagine what I would say to him, if by chance I were walking my dog and he should pull up along side me.

“How are you?” That is what he would ask.

And I would tilt my head slightly and reply, “Honestly? Why sometimes I’m so lonely I hurt.”

He would smile at me sincerely, reassuringly, lovingly and that is when I would open my mouth and suck his whole body through the open window of his car and ingest him, bones and all.

And yes, I am aware it could very well be the weird imaginings that might be hindering me from romantic entanglements. But more likely it is the fact I am fully aware that is exactly what would happen should I enter into a relationship.

Because it is never enough. There is too much emptiness inside that needs to be filled. A gaping hole in the middle of my heart, my soul, my mind? It will never be enough.

A famished person will never just eat one cup of soup. They will eat the whole pot, every loaf of bread, and all of the pudding. Then they will be sick with remorse and starve themselves again as atonement. But soon the hunger pains will become too great and they will be compelled to devour. The Great Devourer.

Sometimes I wonder why  God leaves that hole inside of us, that emptiness. Is it meant to be a scared space? The emptiness and longing venerated with tears? I know one theory is so that we are drawn to him, the only one who can fill it. But then why doesn’t he fill it? A relationship with him sometimes seems like a relationship with a ghost.

I suppose there will never be an answer that satisfies during these intense moments of overwhelming loneliness. There’s just time. Waiting out that twenty percent until the eighty percent contentment returns, and the hole that is always aching in the center of my being is forgotten if only for a time.

Categories: Lotus

Tags: divorce, emptiness, God, loneliness, relationships, single woman