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The Inevitability of Upheaval

Published: 16 June 2019

Runes 2019 June

KM is an ex-girlfriend from many, many years ago. I was doing graphic design then for a record company and she was a senior Occupational Therapy student. We were great the short time that we were together. She's a kindred spirit— a visionary, a romantic. That relationship was one of those extra special things that just got off the ground the first day KM and I saw each other. Fireworks— the kind that you hear being spoken about in the movies.

I didn't really write for her, not in the way that I wrote about others. But we did keep a shared journal that I would write in for a week and pass it on to her the following weekend for her to write in, too. I don't know where that is anymore. I seem to have seen it in my closet somewhere but I'm really not sure. Or it could have been left with her because I may have given it to her the last time we met.

The last time that we were together, many years ago, we were having some awesome break-up sex. On a red couch. On the dining table. On the stairs. Fireworks.

I don't really want to talk about our reasons for breaking up. Suffice it to say that it may have been harder for her than it was for me. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that after all this time, she still hates me. No, there wasn't a third party. There wasn't any infidelity like the one that a more recent ex-girlfriend likes to think was the reason why I broke up with her. But yes, it was difficult for KM.

Speaking of the more recent ex-girlfriend, it was she that brought me the news a couple of years ago that KM now has a long-time girlfriend. Yes, she's a lesbian now. Weird. But it is what it is.

Not too many things surprise me, especially in those days that I really do consult with oracles. “Divination” as some people like to call it. And while I don't like to brag, I have been told many times that I do read the runes quite accurately. But I haven't done that in a long time. Not since that fateful December afternoon in 2001 when I woke up after singing Painkiller Lullabye.

Protip: never take pain killers when you're very drunk. They don't work.

But I have a situation these days. It's no secret. And it's no secret that it's not an easy situation to be in. So, I brought out my runes again recently to ask, ”what the fuck is happening?” And I drew them but have been having trouble reading what they mean. I think I do now.

I will not explain it. Only I need to know what it means.

Last night, I had an epiphany. A vision of her, my Sunshine, with another girl being intimate together, drinking brandy from the bottle on the beach for everyone to see. And perhaps now I understand why, when she looks at me, there is always a feeling of disdain, of hate, of inadequacy. I've tried trying to figure that out for months, asking myself what I have done to deserve that. Apparently, it really isn't something that I did and it is more about what I am— a man.

And now, I am even more confused. Because the message of the runes doesn't end where my realisation begins. The message of the runes say that things cannot be changed. That it is only a matter of how this thing gets to where it is going but the end remains the same—

The inevitability of upheaval.