Make Better Choices

This is what you say to me, as I leave for work. In those five syllables, I hear it all. I hear the mockery, the derision. I hear your impatience and jealousy, your loneliness and frustration. “Can you understand how much this hurts me?”

You accuse me, in your silence, as you brush past me without acknowledgment. You act as if my mind and my heart are your property, but they’re not.

I shouldn’t have said those things. I shouldn’t have thought those things. I shouldn’t have written those things down and put them on my blog.

I try to explain. I try to give context. But you won’t relent. You tell me that I don’t believe in God, you tell me that I don’t want to be married to you. I tell you it isn’t true, but nevertheless you believe what you do.

I often wonder which words will end, have ended my marriage, what I could say to undo it.

I say that neither of us know how many days we have together. I said that I love you and I treasure you. I tell you that I want to be intimate with you and explore our bodies together, because we’ve only been given so many days, and one day, one of us might leave the other.

I only want to love you as an adult, as I am now. I ask if you want me dead, so you can wheel me around and make me nod whenever you want, so I can look and act like the very good boy you want me to be.

I used to drink as a way to quiet the voice raging within me. And it worked, for a little while, but I would awaken in the middle the night and they would be louder than ever. Sobriety means I discover my life is built on a network of lies, and if I tell the truth, everything comes crashing down.

I took my demons and I caged them. I gave them four walls and a roof over their head. And I hoped they would live out their lives peacefully and leave me to lead my life.

You insist on extracting these demons from their cages and delivering them back to my door.

I say that I should never have said anything, because what I’ve learned it that no one gives a shit what I think. You tell me that isn’t true, you tell me that that’s the opposite of what you want. You tell me to keep speaking my truth. But when I do, I see all the hurt come back to your face.