breaking character and letting go

the lights are dimmed.
i look across the empty stage, this empty room.
as i take my seat, enter you. stage left.

spotlight on you.

beat.
flashes of anger, shouts and gnashing of teeth -

beat.
easy music, smiles and laughter -

beat.
fury. echoes of words that can never be taken back -

beat.
gentle caresses, flowers in the vase, apologies as thin as a veil,
and yet i still never saw through it -

beat.
this is it. the final act, just before the curtain,
except i was the only one who didn't know the ending.

it's hard to agree that "i should've known it would end like this"
when i never knew how long anything was going to survive
past that minute, that second, this moment -

and isn't that such a sad way to live?

at first, i promise, that wasn't the case.
when your relationship is a roller coaster from the start,
you can never tell when the winds change.

it's beauty -
it's beastly -
it was something that i asked for.

i did.

but what i didn't ask for was the disrespect,
absolute slander,
and hands that has a cement grip on supple hips.

thick hourglass turned bony.
not too bony for people's concern, but enough -
enough that maybe he'd love me.

rewarded,
slammed,
for the very things he asks for.

contradictory is alive and well in a life that has no sense of direction at all.

he said he loved me, and yet
his love was the thorn tot he rose -
the bone sticking out of the arm -
the dye that never stuck to my hair -

it's almost criminal how he got away with this.

when he left, it was relief.
it was fear.
it was a realization that now, i am not the same.

broken glass does not go back together quite the same way.

but now, enter you.
stage left.
spotlight on.

you -
you're different.
and yet, so am i.








[to be continued.]