We come undone

Like a dangling thread

I’m picking apart

Every word that you’ve said

I'll call it an art

I’ve made my bed

I gave up my heart

While losing my head

It’s you-you-you

Every thought you

I’m lost inside

The high tides

Of your eyes

Those blue lies

Unspool

But he was never mine

I have no right to hold

His picture in my mind

It’s already bought and sold

By a girl out on his wire

Who doesn’t even know

How he likes to play with fire

Or the promises he told

To a naïve girl in love

Who’s left to fall alone

Suffering in silence

That’s all she’s ever known

While he builds his house of lies

She’ll pick him clean off her bones

And force herself to let him go

Letters wrote

That hide in a drawer

High stake keepsakes

Forever yours

The signed proof of his love

Tucked away, it’s her cure

The words he won’t say

Dipped in ink make her sure

She writes,

He was never mine

These words remain untrue

Cause He could never find

The strength to see it through

"I’ll leave her" he would swear

Something he would never do

That man never played fair

Had his cake to eat it too

Fool, why romanticize

An affair that left you cold

From the winter in his eyes

And the lies so easy-told?

Yours forever ends today

For the sake of my lost soul

I’ll find a way to let you go

When a relationship has ended, & you’re hurting but you know there’s no going back, why is it that you tend to idealize all the good times. You push back all the pain and anguish that your partner caused you and dwell on what you did wrong, making you feel inadaquate and you see your ex-lover as some kind of golden person. They don’t want you anymore; so you must be the bad person. Is time the only thing that will let the truth come to you, make you realize that it took 2..... it just ends in 1.

I don’t want to remember the things he took forgranted, because I know I took alot forgranted also. I don’t want to remember his lies because I too lied, but not as often. Just because I admitted to mine never made HIS go away. It takes a big man to admit when they are wrong....& there aren’t many out there that do. It broke my heart when I realized he wasn’t one of them. Most just get madder at you as they explain & turn the conversation around to something that you did wrong.

“All the things you did behind my back”....he said....

I guess I’m so stupid I wasn’t suppossed to see what he did behind my back. Or did he really think he was so perfect he didn’t make mistakes?

In reality...I shouldn’t expect the truth from someone who lies especially to themselves.

Things never spoke of....things that I KNOW. I could have accepted. Denial just closed more doors making the end inevitable.

I’m sorry, I’m dwelling....seems the only way I can make myself realize he wasn’t the 1.

But it doesn’t ease my pain.

When I met him...it was fanatical that first night! He made me laugh away all the trouble we had gotten into with his van breaking down & me just turning 20 away from home, stuck overnight (we had to sleep in the van!)

We would have died for each other back then.

Now different homes, different attitudes, different lives.

Built out of the ashes we left behind....talking...but never about the past except for saying I’m sorry.

Ashes aren’t really good life material, if ya know what I mean.

Sigh...it’s done.

& now I know just how much it cost me.

I feel cold. So cold.

Two reasons behind,

The chilled drift of the plane strokes me,

A paralleled aura emanates from beside.

I use the little energy I have,

and will myself to look.

I've seen that face many a time.

Yet it looks ordinary,

Yet it looks warped.

It is the balance of truth.

For everything good there is bad.

The bad has reigned too long,

my sisters' voices scream.

Your wings have burned, Icarus,

Under the searing gaze of justice.

Come now it's time to fall.

I stare straight ahead again.

I know,

Good shall rise with this descent.

I always knew I was here for a reason

Maybe the reason was to be a cog

But I can’t get myself to a season

Where my life stays in this bog

I love too much

I feel too fiercely

I scare so such

I see so piercincinginly

I can’t give up

Though I’m ready to do so

Can’t make this up

Though I hate to fear, so

I need to make a move

I must make a change

I need to change my hooves

Although I’m scared to mange

It doesn’t matter

It doesn’t count

Feels like my life is over

Feels like such a small amount

I have SO much to give

I have SO much more to live

Yet health has been unkind to me

And it all feels like a grind to me

I had so much hope, so much talent

It’s trapped inside me now

Had so much mope, so little balane

I will finally take a bow, now.

All that I hope for

Is one audience member

Who knows that I meant more,

Who dares to remember

That my reality was the life that I lived for

I decided very late September

Years ago, who cares I love yore

And died fighting for in November

But I died, yes I know it’s a bore....

JUST please remember

The woman I was once known before.

Don’t forget me, don’t disremember

The woman of your folkolore this December.

For I was once like you, someone no one could remember.

It’s too bad that someone has to be gone

For them to be remembered,

We have one hour left until the plane ends. The whole time I tried to busy myself with boring movies on the inflight entertainment and I even pretended to sleep when I rarely sleep on planes. Mr Epstein had been trying to make conversation with me but I guess I was the most boring person they could have picked for this job. The lifestyle of the rich and famous never excited me. I guess that's why I was picked for this job. The job of "baby-sitter".

"Would you like some red wine Lydia", he asked as he sipped on a champagne glass. Probably his 10th. "I'm fine Sir, uh... I don't drink, remember?" I replied. He shrugged as if to say 'worth a try'. I knew what he was doing. This is what he had been doing the whole flight. And I knew this is what he did to young girls, and children, and teenagers. He lured them with his charm and money and then stripped them off their innocence and value, their dignity and worth. He was a sick, vile, monster, who deserved to be - "WOAH! Why are you looking at me like that?” he uttered in disbelief as he disturbed me mid-thought. I then realized my face had grown tense and I was just looking at him with a face of disgust. "Oh", I acted quickly to save my cover, “it’s just alcohol, it brings back memories of a traumatic childhood. That's why I don't like it so much". He nodded his head in sympathy. Whew! I sunk back into my seat and tried to relax. I checked my watch. Fifty minutes until we land. He had no idea what was in store for him as he slowly sipped on his champagne.

He’s eating leaves on a fancy glass plate.

It’s simple, quite like my thoughts when I see his face for the first time. Business class seating has nowhere near enough space for a teenage girl and a sex offender. Of course, he doesn’t know who I am, and eyes that I expect to leer simply pass over me as he turns to face a closed window.

“Hello.” I’m playing with fire, but like a pyromaniac, I want to know why someone so dangerous can look and feel so normal.

I am ignored, because I am not made of billions, because I am not like the beautiful vulnerable people he takes advantage of. For the first time, I am happy that I can fly under the radar, that I am not drawn into the tangible worth and status that swirl in the air around him.

The next time I speak we are on the ground, the plane rumbling along, a far cry from the smooth flight in the skies. His life is about to get a whole lot rockier too.

“You know, when we touch the ground, you are going to be arrested.” He finally whips around to stare angrily at me. He knows what he has done is morally wrong, but reminding him of the truth only yields resentment.

“Shut up!” It’s a voice of guilt and shame pooled into one, but only because he knows I know about his wrongdoings.

“If you don’t die, Ghislaine is going to kill herself.” I smile and practically run off the plane before the shock on his face turns into anger.

Jeffrey Epstein dies of suicide on August 10, 2019.

Anxiety. It's a funny word. Three syllables, seven letters. How does this word even begin to describe the excruciating worry I feel at this very moment.

I'm fidgeting in my seat, trying to keep my mind occupied and off of the man next to me. He's tall, older. His hair is graying and he is going to be arrested once this plane touches down.

"Do you mind?" He leans forward, reaching for the light I nod, leaning back so he can click the button. A harsh yellow light lit up our row, shedding light on both him and my apparent nerves. "I'm Jeffrey, by the way. What are your plans in Florida?"

I hesitate, unsure of what to say, but then I smile and say, "I'm Candace, its very nice to meet you. I'm actually going home."

He nods before going back to the book in his hands. I look away, grateful he is no longer talking to me. I put in my headphones, letting my music drown out the sounds of the plane and close my eyes. Not that I'd be able to sleep. Epstein's leg was close to mine, his knee bumping my leg every couple minutes. I pull my legs towards the window, it's going to be a long five hours.

#jeffreyepstein #flight #plane #arrest #amatuerwriter #arrests

The worst man is still a man, and one can flip the gender for Nannie Doss or Lucrezia Borgia. The reckoning makes that truth clear. Consider Adolf Hitler in his bunker, when he knew the Reich was truly gone. He died in terror, in pride of his achievements, in love with Eva Braun. Half rabid with fear, he still possessed shreds of that charisma that could have moved and aided millions, had he not chosen to burn millions instead. I heard it all in his voice. He was, to be clear, evil. Thoroughly so. Still, if one read his thoughts as he aimed the gun at himself (and I did), a little part of him imagined another life, painting landscapes along the Rhine. I’d ballpark that part at four percent of him.

I collect them: reckonings. Someone needs to.

That, of course, is why I sat on a 727 about to touch down in New Jersey on July 6, 2019: Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express.” He took me for a journalist profiling his philanthropic endeavors. They always explain me to themselves somehow; running from the Moscow mob, Rasputin believed me a woman he had “purified” a few nights before.

“You can’t pigeonhole the future,” Epstein said, clinking the ice in his tumbler. “It doesn’t belong to science, or architecture, or art, or technology – no matter what the Google crew would tell you. It’s the nexus.” He pointed his finger for emphasis, then noted the paltry level of liquid in his glass. He raised the finger upward, and the stewardess approached with more pomegranate juice. He never drank; he’d seen too often what drink would do, growing up near Coney Island.

“The future is in the nexus,” he said. “That’s why I’ve given so much to the MIT Media Lab. You have to believe in something. I believe in the future.” The stewardess dropped in more ice cubes. Epstein said, “Thank you, Stacey,” as she walked away.

“You’ve given elsewhere, too,” I prompted.

“I have. I have…” He watched the ice cubes swirl in the deep red. “I made my first donation to Harvard nearly thirty years ago. For Rosovsky Hall, the new Hillel building. My name’s on the plaque there.”

“Does that matter to you? The name on the plaque.”

“No. Sort of…” Another sip, another moment watching the cubes. “Everyone dies, you know. Someday I’ll die. Stacey there. The pilot. You.” Three out of four, I thought. “A man wants to leave something. Something that will last. Matter.”

Buildings rushed by quickly outside the window, but I waited. Questions channel thinking. To truly know a person, one must silently wait.

“We all need to balance the scales,” he said.

He turned to find me when the feds and the NYPD accosted him, but I was already gone, and already he had mostly forgotten me. I’d collected his reckoning; I knew who he was.

There was fear, as always, and anger. A little bit of regret, even on the flight. The question of legacy truly mattered to him; I felt it as he talked of the future. If one listened to his words very closely—and many people had—one could hear that genuine concern and zeal; so loudly that one might not realize how much Stacey’s backside preoccupied him, or recognize how viciously part of him wished to own her.

I’d ballpark that part at 88 percent of him.