This is a delicious sadness.
The rain is quiet and cold.
I am trying to remember if he had a signature smell.
I cannot . There are so many things I did not absorb. All I could smell at that time
was desire. Awkward, hurried desire.
I forgot my fear of dying for a little while and just thought of not waking up as a rest.
The only way to get help would be to have it forced upon them. Simple requests, calmly stated never quite worked out for me.
Neither did pleas for assistance in carrying what should have been shared responsibilities.
The only way to describe the trap I’m in, is to say I’m always alone, but never alone. There are always the things to tend to, the meals, the cleaning, getting the kids dressed and bathed and consoled. I often feel I wasn’t designed for parenthood. Like something is inherently missing in my DNA but forgot to tell my reproductive system I am flawed. I’ve become the mother martyr I despised growing up.
What’s inside of me is wild and untamed. Rebellious and violent when pressed down. What’s inside of me is passion unchecked. There are no words caught like gravel in my throat. There is no look I turn away from.
Only one man saw that in me, for a period of minutes, maybe five. He had a beautiful blonde wife with long hair and a floral dress. But when he looked at me I knew he saw through me. The type I would have dismissed as not having the ability. Late thirties, fit, symmetrical and generic like a J.C. Penney’s catalog male model dressed for business . Unbuttoned white shirt, gray dress pants. Probably the type of husband that paperbacks are written about because of their infidelities. The type that smells women that need to be fucked senseless, women who have libidos sitting like dynamite precariously held by awkward body language and downward glances. When he smiled, he didn’t turn away, and I looked him straight in the eyes.
5 minutes pass. I leave, I drive away, I don’t go back to where I saw him. I know who I am and it’s dangerously unstable. (I’m a lot of things but I’m not a thief.)
I am becoming courageous. I am starting to care less and less about anyone’s stances on morality. Perhaps I should be more empathetic but I say, I endured my loneliness and my perspective changed. I don’t feel blame anymore, and never really did. In that discourse, what stuck was “In morality there is right and wrong. In being natural, there is wisdom and foolishness.” I see an unnatural system that doesn’t work and have decided that believing in monogamy around here is akin to believing in Santa Claus.
The funny thing is this shattered some distinct difference between male and female. The difference was I, as a female, had been thoroughly trained on chastity and loyalty.In submission. I like to laugh at how being honest about my viewpoints on sexuality makes you want to call me a slut, although I’ve touched less than half as many as you. The good ol’ male double standard. Hell, when we were dating there were other ladies. That’s not what I regret about us. What I regret is how I let you stifle me, your forearm on my throat, just to let me know your power. I fought for a minute, clawed your neck, until the flesh peeled off. And then I submitted. I laid on my back and quit speaking. Turned my head; I couldn’t look at you anymore. Go ahead. I acquiesce. You came on my face as drunkenly as you flaunted your betrayal to your own words.
What better place to honestly evaluate my life than on your kitchen floor? I was ashamed of who I became around you and the side I brought out in you. Speak or die. Speak or die. A switch was flipped; a wire was tripped.
What I didn’t know was that there was a fire inside of me at the pit of my stomach radiating through me. A passion for living. Dancing, fucking, sleeping, bathing. Action. Inertia is the symptom of compromise. Inertia is the side effect of forgetting myself. I am no one’s ideal and no one is mine. I don’t place my happiness in any one’s hands. I don’t place my value in any one’s hands. It’s all my own and I am quite capable of deciding whether I feel like shit or I feel vibrant on my own.
I sweep the water off the back porch, all the dirt and debris in with it. Nothing is as beautiful as this lush green. I appreciate it. Alone again.
two ten 