Dam

The sweet words he has for you used to flow for me...but they are drying up, a trickle where the torrent once was. I am trying to tell myself that he loves me still, trying to hold onto the belief that I am home...but the thought keeps drifting through my hind-mind that people usually can't wait to get away from home.

I don't feel loved...and now I feel guilt along with this not-loved because he says he has been trying to show me and I'm not seeing, not hearing. He's right - I have looked and looked, and all I see is how much he is pouring into you.

My hurt is not worth bothering with...just an annoyance, something to be hurried up and dealt with so he can get to what he really wants. I see it on his face when I am honest with him, hear it in his voice when he responds, feel it in the anger that only I am special enough to experience.

I have given up with believing that I will ever be so special to anyone that they might, if only for a moment, put my needs first...or that anyone will ever take care of me. Much as I yearn for comfort, to feel valued, protected, and nurtured, I know better than to think anyone can give that to me.

The Hell is, I love him, and I don't mind that he loves other women...I mind that when things don't go the way he wants them to, I am the one who suffers. I mind that I feel like an imposition, that I can't even ask for a little time for US without anyone else factoring into it. I mind seeing how much he wants THEM and wondering if I'm going to get a little of that care, too, or if I'm just on a back burner, old reliable, wanted only when no one else is available. I mind feeling like I'm not worth the time or effort any more, that I don't get to have the sweet words, the gentle touch, without it being resented or some kind of effort.

I don't doubt he loves me...but I can't help feeling sometimes that he resents it, resents me, and would rather be free.

He used to rush to read my words...used to write back. He told me my words won him. Now, though...he walks away from me when I speak, ignores my writing, ignores my words. The thing that supposedly won his heart...he doesn't care about. How is that supposed to make me feel?

I have this outpouring of myself that I must now dam up, because no one wants to swim in a polluted river, and my silence will go as unnoticed as my writing now does.