My Twisted Existence

February 24, 2010

It’s crazy. It’s like everything hangs on him. The palpitations of my heart. The hair on the back of my neck. The complexion of my day. Whether I’ll go to the coffee shop on the corner or the bakery on Peachwood pivots on his whims.

It’s Wednesday so he’ll be there. The twenty-sixth Wednesday. I don’t know whether it’s the lack of space or a sincere attraction to me, but he rests his legs right next to my body and I can instantly feel the heat radiating from the thickness of his thighs.

Should I speak? Should I smile? Should I let the moment blow past me only to flutter away into the distance? With my peripheral vision, I cannot tell whether he is looking at me or it is my overactive imagination. I cough. One time. Two times. Suddenly, I’m actually coughing, having gotten something trapped in my throat.

He comes to my aid like a chivalrous knight, “Are you OK?”

He notices I’m writing a story. It’s an instalove romance about a princess and rogue. Happily ever after endings are corny, but that is the one I say I plan to write.

We go on dates. He opens the doors. Maybe a little jealous, but I like the way he leers at guys who stare too long at me. Should I like it?

June 10, 2013

Three years. Three years that started with a date. Developed into a fling and then an arrangement. Three years of hints, three years of walks on busy streets hands clasped together as a public showing of our connection, three years of going deep into the nether regions my souls sharing pieces of my flesh, three years of my head nuzzled into his hard shoulder in the dark of night so seamless, so second nature, three years of leaving Flower, Brides, and Vogue Weddings magazines scattered throughout his apartment. Three years and no proposal. 

You look yourself in the mirror and find the thing that is wrong. Not if something is wrong. You search books, social media, confide in friends, and Youtube videos for the elusive answer. You try some -- a different shade of lipstick, styling your hair in such a way. 

Nothing. Works.

One night, in the mirror, I tell myself I would make an ultimatum. I am more than a beggar clasping my hands for crumbs. I am beautiful. I am valuable. Not a mere legal connection between two beings. Having someone of such loyalty would be his bliss and if he can’t see that, well, I guess things must come to an end.

The night I resolve to do it at the Italian restaurant in front of the elderly couple who, though their skin folds, their eyes look in the prime of life. In front of the waiter who has been looking down on us the whole time not expecting a hefty tip. I open my mouth, and he cuts me off to tell me. 

It’s over.

The waiting, the worrying, the wondering.

“Will you marry me?”

I say yes and wonder if it’s just because he heard me in the bathroom.

April 10, 2014

Your wedding day is something like a ritual. Not in the sense that it is a tradition but in the sense that it feels like the world is trying to cast an incantation to get you to believe the lie of love. The abundance of flowers to conjure thoughts of youth and everlasting renewal. The regal tone of the church organ playing so loudly as if reaching up to heaven to impress god, The prodding, plucking and pulling in of your imperfections designed to squeeze you in a tiny dress specially designed to make you glide across the aisle like a cool white breeze. All coalescing to perform magic.

The final vows between bride and groom may as well be a witch's hex. As you repeat the spell from a book only to be reminded of the impermanence of all things by those five final words.

"Till death do us part."

July 22, 2014

Three months into our marriage, he’s doing things he has not done before. He’s muttering about his roughshod life. About how things did not turn out as planned. He does not say it’s me. But my kisses touch his skin but do not penetrate. Our love is soulless. Our routine a mere existing of two bodies in one abode. But he says the words each day, “I love you.” It must be true. Though their canned nature makes me wonder if he only uses them on me.

September 14, 2015

 My husband joined the army and went to war because he is a noble man. He went there for the same reasons Richard Lovelace left Lucasta..

Yet this inconstancy is such

         As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee (Dear) so much,

         Lov’d I not Honour more.

This is what I repeat in the mirror every day to convince myself he wasn’t running.

October 20, 2015

It’s strange living alone. Like putting on a new pair of shoes. You walk places with no person by your side and people and couples look as if you are weird. But they do not realize you are just the same as them. Just apart.

I want to look at their smirking smiling faces, climb upon a soapbox and silence them by regaling them with tales of my mighty warrior. The best kind of man. A soldier. A hero. 

But the opportunity never comes.

January 11, 2016

I join a knitting class. I always wanted to make something. Build with my hands. The growing tapestries of yarn imitate my expanding world as I join more classes. Or as I call them -- distractions from the distance between me and him. I want to hold him. I want to nuzzle up close to his hard body, so I join a dance class, wine tasting, book clubs. I make friends who ask about me often.

Still. I am only half full. 

February 3, 2016

I go to bars and sample their finest wines and once the best blend is found, I get drunk and dance with a man whose face I cannot see. We salsa into the night. I hate myself at dawn. I tumble over and see a renegade letter peeping out from the hefty pile I snatched out of the mailbox. I open it.

I smile.

He’s coming home.

May 25, 2016

I should have known there was something wrong when I heard the knock. It was not like his. It was tepid and formal. Two knocks and done.

I open a door and a stranger stands in a soldier’s uniform. Watching a usually stolid creature struggle to bend his eyes into a compassionate glare was intriguing. His mouth did not need to utter words. His diminished posture and the way he moved toward me like trying to touch delicate china said it all.

He went into battle and didn’t come back. I wept.

June 4 2016

There is no simple way to describe depression. You don’t quite want to die but more so numb the pain. Long naps, drugs, alcohol. Repeat.

Death is but one choice on a long list of tranquilizers. On your lowest day, you’ll entertain Him. Sip tea with the reaper and look him in the eye. His words play like a soothing hymn. I sipped his tea and faded into unconsciousness. 

---

Let me tell you about the place between life and death. It’s a place of a million memories cram-packed into one elongated moment filling you with an entire spectrum of emotions. … but the most pronounced emotion in that bundle of sensations would have to be regret. 

June 5, 2016

I open my eyes in the ER. I notice the neatly formed designs in the ceiling. The steady beep of the IV, a preamble to revitalization. I manage to lift my head just enough to see the room -- an ocean of flowers and get well cards from book club friends, fellow knitters, dancers, and wine enthusiasts exhorting me to get well. 

I don’t feel alone anymore.

June 13, 2017

I finish the story I started a long time ago in that cafe. It has a different ending than I remember. Not the happy Twilight I first envisioned, but hopeful. A real hope with creases and folds. A pen to paper birth of noblesse oblige. I feel, for the first time, I am writing my own story. My own world. Not a distant fiction, but a harsh unyielding beauty two ticks from the truth. 

There is something golden about looking out on a new reality, the wind blowing your hair, split ends and all in every different direction, a blazing sun scorching your nose, but you leaning in nonetheless.

Eyes struck by tragedy are the clearest eyes of all. Hello, new life.

September 25, 2018

I was walking through the old neighborhood with my new eyes. There is a spirit of adventure around every corner. But as I turn another, there he is. My husband. My love.

I thought he was dead, but there he is, right in front of me on the street, smiling.

He told me about how he did not die, but instead went awol that day, He could not take the rigors of war so struck a deal with an unnamed foreigner. He sounds like a man starved for physical lust -- but not affection. He talks about my body. He talks about how he missed… my body. Anybody.

I swear his face has not changed, but he looks uglier. Is this the man from before?

His words are blunt instruments on my ears. He talks of nothing that goes beneath the skin, just touches my hand. Looks into my eyes, wanting something physical. 

“I’ve moved on,” I say.

He asks if it’s another lover, but my lover is life. Full and beautiful. His eyes are limitations on my soul. He grabs my hand.

“But you are mine.”

And it sends a creep throughout my heart. The trademark jealousy has returned.

I tell him no once more. 

I have been telling him no ever since. 

No one will listen.

It’s crazy. It’s like everything hangs on him. The palpitations of my heart. The hair on the back of my neck. The complexion of my day. Whether I’ll go to the coffee shop on the corner or the bakery on Peachwood pivots on his whims.