I was a good wife until I wasn’t.
I loved him in the way that I could until I couldn’t. It was when he was on his knees after his usual ten seconds between my legs where he’d practice the same tongue movements he’d always done. A flat slimy tongue attached to a skull that I no longer wanted near me.
Our demise had been years in the making. A dream I had the day before I married told me I was making a mistake, but I rarely listen to my intuition even when it grabs me by the nipple and begs me to go.
No, I like to see my nightmares through.
I cheated on him. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. I needed to know that I was someone that another human walking on this planet found desirable. I’ve never had the best love relationship with myself. I was taught from an early age that I wasn’t lovable, so I didn’t love me. Looking back over these sentences strung together above, I see this love of “I” and it riddles me.
But, back to my cheating. I did it. It was with a man I can remember by name and who makes me think of cigarettes and stolen gropes and kisses in the office stairwell when we both pretended to be on coffee breaks. He made me feel alive when I was dying inside. I tasted his mouth and didn’t exactly love it, but wanted it to spark me somehow.
He knew I was having an affair. It wasn’t about sex. The stunted times we tried were rather pathetic and nothing like the passion fueled movie scenes I had imagined. Seedy and yuck. An acrid burn to the back of the throat like an ashtray shot of vodka.
The Rolodex of memories are scattered around, but they’re there waiting to be flipped through. I am sitting here in front of the next stage of my life and looking clearly at it for the first time. I’ve got nothing to hide because my truth is of no consequence to anyone. The sorting through the fragments and understanding how I’m putting together this puzzle for myself is all that matters. I’ve got this one life at the moment and won’t live on unless I make an effort to. My words and my experiences are all that I have. They’re not always pretty, but they’re mine. I want to scour the corners. Clean out the dark and dirty bits that are part of the mishmash that is my life. I am this house. This home of a human with various rooms. Some of them are decorated warm and anyone can come in, sit down, and feel as if they’ve reached this perfect space nirvana. There are plants, comfy couches, books and new magazines to read. Good music comes from a radio that isn’t too tinny with the sound and there are of course great snacks. All the good ones that satisfy the salty-sweet need of the most finickiest.
Then, there are other rooms that should have a little latch on both sides and a key that only I hold. Shit is piled on the bed and boxes of things that need to be sorted through are staring through the crack in the door where light sometimes gets in.
I’m unpacking the boxes, sifting through the shit, and finding the lost little things that I wanted but kept pushing aside. I’ve got to go through them and sort out the shit in the piles, but underneath, I think I’ll find a way out. This beautiful house of my life is a wonderful sprawling mess with floors that have seen better days and light fixtures that need a little updating, but that’s what good bras are for.
I crack me up.