Hindsight

I don't want to write this
and yet I have no choice
to live one must have a will to survive
and mine has taken me over.

The words do not come easily
They pour through my mind
broken fragments
too deeply felt for easy expression.

I need you to understand.
I love you.
but I cannot let you destroy me.

Layer after layer
we put down our foundation in words
thoughts expressed, shared, responded to.

We forged the union body to body.
I released myself utterly to you.
My heart was laid open
and you took it.

Every request you made was met.
Every promise I gave was fulfilled.
Every word I spoke was true.
Every thought you surrendered was considered.

I lapped up your praise,
your devoured words became my passion,
given to you without restraint.

You opened the door into your family,
your sacred space.
Gratitude filled my heart to overflowing.

Through all my questions you were resolute.
At each step you beckoned me forward.
You said I had to trust,
That you would catch me when I jumped.

Your desire for me was intoxicating.
I believed you.
There was no word of warning,
as I sent away my car, my commitments, my best friend.

And then you were in my arms again,
and I was beside myself with joy.
My partner, my lover,
My life mate was with me.

It was supposed to be the beginning of forever.

Only then came the doubt.
Spilling from your lips.
Every concern once uttered in my voice,
Now lashed my open heart in yours.

Denial closed around me like a shield.
Cognitive dissonance wracked my mind.
Trust, respect, communication;
How had I ended up here?

You have no idea what you have put me through.
And if I did not bring it up,
It would not occur to you to care.

Trust.
Where should I place it?
It has been made clear,
I was wrong to trust your words.
Yet I do not know how I could have guessed.

Respect.
You have none for me.
My plans, my safety, my needs,
Barely noted casualties,
In the epic consideration of your comfort.

Communication.
So dangerous with you.
When every thought expressed,
every expression, every look,
causes me to melt with love.

The loneliness which closed around me,
after you departed for your real life,
clutching my core in ice cold pain,
brought a clarity I can no longer fight
if I am to survive.

To want to be my family,
to want me to be in yours,
so surprising, so giving, so generous,
such a fantasy now put on indefinite hold.

Where is the balance lacking that illusory gift?

In these empty weeks of madness,
As I have struggled to survive,
My mind has turned inside out
Seeking the memories which would let me live.

Yet I am left empty.

The memories that I should have
To get me through this long dark night,
They were never created,
and I am left grasping at phantoms.

Your lips crushing against mine,
desperate to taste me.

Your fingertips tracing the lines;
jaw, neck, shoulders, thigh.

Your arms wrapping around me unexpectedly,
impulsively pulling me tight to you.

Your face buried in my shoulder,
breathing me in and shivering with desire.

Your hands stretched taught with passion,
exploring with forced restraint to extend a precious moment.

Where are my memories of being your woman?
Where are the moments of glorying in my femininity?

I have a memory of a night,
I started to assemble those tactile remembrances.
Seducing myself, using you.
For my trouble I received a scolding.

Something in my choice of venue offended.
I was returned to my place.
But I do not now,
Nor have I ever,
wanted to be your man.

But you do not now,
Nor have you ever,
treated me as your woman.

Hours have past,
which should have been used
to pull myself up
from where you knocked me down.

Instead I have created
Understanding and excuses
On your behalf.

Perhaps your selfishness is necessity.
Perhaps I too was incapable of giving,
Before I was truly honest about myself.
Before I told my loved ones my truths.

Perhaps your mind is still shaken,
By a marriage that did not survive,
Maybe you cannot help but test,
That I am not helpless without you.

Perhaps putting Henry first,
Has hardened your mind and heart,
Against considering the needs of others.

Perhaps you truly believed,
That I was invulnerable.
That I had no needs.
Or that I was lying about what they were.

The truth I have is that I love you,
and that I have let you come as close
to utterly destroying me,
as I can possibly allow.

I wear the ring.
I seek out no other.
But I cannot continue to pretend,
That I am not alone.

I have no partner.
But I am in love,
With an amazing girl,
Who I pray will one day grow up,
Into a woman that can love me.

Lost Love

My poor lost love,
So caught up in a journey I cannot share.

I see your struggle,
and I whisper my encouragements from so far away.
This is not a maze that I can navigate on your behalf.
In this your must find your own way.

What can I tell you to give you strength?
That I know your potential exceeds the needs of this test?

Shall I hope you cannot see that potential and present ability are not synonymous?
Shall I wrap you in comfort spun from intellect and charisma?
Shall I trick you into pursuing the path I would choose for you?

Thus depriving you of the very independence of thought that I cherish in you?
Deprive you of your chief virtue?
Sweetly steal from you of the personal strength of character which makes you so much more than the role you cast for yourself?

And what would that leave for me but a lifetime of lies?
Shall I bat my lashes and pretend it would be the same?
Spend our life pretending to an equality of minds my actions had succinctly mocked?
Would I hope you would never become embittered and confront me?
Or would I instead hope for the confrontation to cleanse my guilt with your hate?

There is nothing soft and easy for me to offer you.
There is only truth and knowledge.
I do not know that you can do this.
I do not know that you can handle a relationship with me.
I do not know that you have what it takes.

I know that you are just now beginning to wonder
about the weightiness of choosing to accept my love.
You have begun to guess that accepting my surrender,
would be to surrender yourself.

And what does the adult you know of surrender?
Only that which would make you recoil; fear; distrust; flee.

Perhaps you have become too practical to survive a leap of faith.
Too rigid, stable, reliable;
Unable to embrace flexibility, enthusiasm, support without damage.

And I have no wish to damage you.

What can I tell you now, but that you have time?

I will not rush you.
My path is set and will continue apace.
My hand will be out to you for as long as it can reach.
My heart will be yours forever.