TAKING IT BEFORE THE LORD
Niama L. Williams
Copyright May 2008
1,037 words


He says he has to take it before the Lord.

It is like a fire; I can't think, my body aches, it is like a flame that clouds one's reason, one's ability to function, I have to pause, close my eyes and focus to sit here and type. What grounds me is that I have a public, folks out there waiting to hear what comes next, and my responsibility to them pulls me out of the miasma for a moment to record so some other woman cursed with this suffering knows for sure she has not lost her mind.

I looked up the symptoms for menopause the other day, the days are running together, I haven't slept since Tuesday I think, and no, excessive libido not listed. Thanks so much Dr. Susan Lark; I thought I could trust you.

He sits in the living room and he falls asleep in front of the tv and yes, he is 76 and sexy as hell, in better shape than me. When you have more prescriptions than your 76-year-old want-to-be-lover, that's a problem. I only know that my body aches and he curses pharmaceutical companies with every breath but I'm finding a gynecologist somewhere and she's writin me a script. Because I have to be able to work, dammit, Barnes and Noble called today, I have to be able to work, I want this position, want to honor that company.

He says he has to take it before the Lord and I want to ask that Heavenly Father, uh, Father of Signore Bastardo, is this another cosmic joke? To shut me down, to help me stay shut down for 42 years and then to wake me, painfully, with a love who places You before all? I did not realize how close I was with the film about the ruby; that husband thought sex something sacred performed before God. My lover, my want to be lover is quite adept, learned well, taught himself much, is acclaimed privately for certain skills, has no fears about performance.

So why, God, have you placed on his heart such a deadly fear of fornication? We were brought together, Father of Heaven, to assist in his healing. I know this as clearly as I know the star of Bethlehem heralded Christ's birth. I know that the man I love, the man I burn for, has scars so deep, wounds so thick Oscar Mayer could fry right next to them and nobody would notice the heavenly smell of bacon. He has been hurt by the best, by those who know how to bury a son so deep he does not even realize abuse is what is happening. His biblical understanding so much a function of what they taught children in his day; he thinks everything his fault, that his wants and desires make him worthy of punishment. Only I can see the great wrongs done him and the damage that makes him cling so fervently to the Bible.

I only want, God, Maker Mine, to ease his pain, to lighten his suffering, to restore to him the cake walk, the assertiveness, the Kingly stride that was his due at birth, that every Black man of his day was robbed of striding; so much has been taken from his self-worth, his psyche; Lover of Your Children, if he comes to you in prayer, show him a way, Oh Lord, show him a way that will allow him to embrace this gift I offer at your bidding. Because it is not about allaying my fires, no Father, Greatest of Holies, it is about the suffering in him that I see and that I want to mend. I want to touch him with a loving touch, a healing touch, a restorative touch.

Oh please, Lord of Hosts, Holiest of Holies, intercede on my behalf. I have been your good and faithful servant. I struggle, every day, and in the midst of this pain, to be obedient. But I cry out with a woman's cry, woman, whom you have made special, whom you have made to bear pains that would kill any testosterone bearer on Earth, you have made us strong, God, but you give us pain to bear that breaks our backs and solidifies our spirit.

I can only turn to you. I can only burn. I can only pray.

I will go to the priests and the nuns. I will ask, what do I do? What do I do with this passion? How do I keep it from destroying all that I have grown? There are some, I know, who did not turn to the young boys. There are some, I know, who understand the erotic energy and how to turn it, how to use the bellows properly, to tune it down when it rages and not self-destruct.

I do not pray for death this time. I do not pray to come home.

I ask instead for the arms of he with whom You matched me in the beginning, he whom only this one whom I currently love understands and believes in and steps aside for, I ask for Your blessing that he appear and take me away for not much more of this can I stand, Father. No woman was made to endure this. No bite from no apple should cost this. Not when all of this comes from love, a desire to heal.


I am in a rung of hell with which I am unfamiliar. I am unsure of the pathway out. He takes his sunchlorella and says it helps him sleep. Three, he says, will do the trick. I will take three. I will pray. I will ask that the cloud lift, that the confusion melt, that the mist evaporate and the pain subside.

And before I go to sleep tonight, I will let him know he is not off the hook. My fingers may fly, my public may place me in this too familiar chair in this too familiar posture, but the flame is real and soon, soon it may burn us both!

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Dr. Niama L. Williams
Norristown, PA
http://www.blowingupbarriers.com