The Lonely Road

I am tired.  I want to give up.

I feel worn, played out.

The kind of life I wish I could have, well, it’s not impossible I suppose, but it’s highly unlikely.

I’m not old, not really, but I feel like I’m too old to hope for what I wish could be.

Old, worn, played out.

Dull.

All too easily passed over for someone brighter, sexier, prettier, more...more.

I’ve never been, will likely never be, the woman that haunts anyone’s dreams.  I am too aware of what I’m not, too aware of what I am, to believe in a happy-ever-after.  Content is ambitious, but I can imagine that more easily.  I can be alone and content most of the time.

Nights are hardest.  No distractions.  Nothing but me and my thoughts.  My lonely, painful, unhappy thoughts.

I can’t pretend, at night, that the emptiness doesn’t matter, that I don’t want, need, wish for someone to offer me comfort, a gentle touch, kind, loving words.

But during the day, I can pretend.  It’s not so damnably obvious that the kind of loving partnership that I know exists for others, isn’t there for me.  That’s not self-pity.  It’s just...what’s true.  Experience.  I have tried to make it happen, but I make poor choices.  Desperate choices.  Blind choices.

Never shop hungry.

If I could excise the hope, the dreams...or at least if I could just stop feeling so worthless, so much a burden, so unworthy, if I could keep the deadness contained and never let on...

I don’t know what.

I hate knowing that I never will know what a K and A kind of love, a D and B kind of love, is like.

It’s too late, my head tells me, and nothing in the world gives it the lie.

There Is No Arizona

Most fairy tails begin with "Once upon a time..." and end with "...happily ever after."

They have trials and tribulations and daring rescues by dashing princes.

When I was a little girl, I was taught that if I styled my hair, wore makeup, wore the right clothes, the right shoes, the right perfume, then the handsome prince would come rescue me from...what?...myself?

He would ride in on his white horse, sweep me up, and carry me away into our blissful forever.

The thing is, I never learned how to be a girl.  Hair?  Makeup?  Style?  Hopeless.  Complete failure, really.  I can barely manage a ponytail, most cosmetics and perfumes make me itch, and my clothing is best described as "comfortable" and "hand-me-down", machine washable and dryable.

And if there's a prince out there, he's not looking at me.  He's looking at some princess far more comely and appealing on her worst day than I can manage on my best, and who can blame him?

After all this time, I've had to learn to rescue myself.  I suppose that's fine, better than waiting around for the myth that never comes.  There's no prince for me.  Hell, what prince wants a dull, middle-aged damsel with tiny, sagging tits, a flabby belly, flabby arms, flabby legs, sagging ass, and precious little sex appeal?

Experience hath shewn that I'm not worth any effort, but since it takes an effort to love me...or really, have anything to do with me...well...you can see where at least part of the trouble lies.

There is no happily ever after in my story - There's just this grey sort of existence where I am constantly reminded just how little worth I have by the very people who claim to value me even as their actions show otherwise.

I wish I could rid myself of the lingering longing for that long ago promised prince.  I might not be any happier than I am now, but maybe I wouldn't ache so much over how lonely and unwanted I feel in these wee small hours when I am weary and worn and in no mood or condition to battle the darkness, the emptiness, that close in on me like hungry dragons with no princely rescuer in sight.

Care

I'm feeling lonely.

And feeling sorry for myself.

I've caught some minor plague from my daughter and it has me tired, and tired isn't a good idea when I'm already feeling sad.  Depressed.

One year is ending, one beginning, and I don't care.  It's just time, sliding away, sliding past, slippery and ungripable, both dragging me with it and leaving me behind.  I feel lost in it, swirling in its eddies then yanked into the rushing currents, and always breathless with the awareness of it all and wishing I could stop, or pause, and rest in stiller waters for a while.

I cannot recall the last time I felt the warmth of being taken care of.

This is what I'm feeling sorry for myself over.

I don't feel like I have been taken care of in a very long time.  Not that I need much of it, but sometimes, when my throat is sore and my nose stuffy, and I'm tired and feeling low...yeah...sometimes it'd be nice if someone made me soup.  Or sat next to me and stroked my hair and soothed me a little.

The last time I was sick, really sick, good and sick, I wound up in the hospital.  My mother was watching my children with the help of a friend, but my partner...well...he wasn't doing much.  When he finally came to visit, it was a very short visit, and I could tell he wanted to be elsewhere.  My less forgiving self thinks there was beer waiting for him, and he wanted that more than anything else in the world.

I spent three days in the ICU, largely alone.  Probably for the best, because I slept...but wouldn't it have been nice to fall asleep, to wake up, with someone there beside me, just a caring, loving presence?

I suppose.  Wouldn't know, though.  My dearest friend drove much farther to see me, and even claimed the clothing I'd worn into the ER to take home and wash for me.  That was amazing.  That left me feeling loved.

I've never had a partner who took up the slack when I was ill.  After that stay in the hospital, when I got home, I was supposed to rest.  That couldn't happen, not with two kids, some cats, a house, a partner, to take care of.  There's never rest, not here, not for me, and there's never that gentle warmth that comes from knowing that my partner, my lover, is there for me to lean on, to take care of me when I get where I can't do it and need help for a minute.

And I did say I am feeling sorry for myself.

I did some thinking, and I think it was more than 20 years ago that I was looked after - I was good and sick that time, fever hovering around 104 for days, no money for doctors or medicines, just me in my bed sleeping for hours on end. My mother came down from her place and watched over me for a couple of days.  She went shopping and made me hot toddies, and the fever broke and when I was well enough to get up and fend for myself she hugged me, kissed me, and went on home, her job well done.  No, wait...she drove me to the ER years later, when my appendix burst.  Sat there with me while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, waited until they surgery was done and I was awake, eventually went home, but came back the next day to sit with me and help me with some personal grooming that I couldn't manage on my own.  When I got home from that, it was life as usual...no resting, as ordered, because laundry and cooking and cleaning don't so themselves, and apparently I don't choose partners who think to do them when I'm laid up, and now I'm bitter as well as feeling sorry for myself,

Most of the time, I don't want to be taken care of.  Loved?  Yes, please!  Helped with chores, as an equal?  You bet!!!  I don't want to be kept or coddled, truly.  Just...I don't know...maybe it's that I still don't much feel cherished, worthy of the effort of paying attention.  Fuck, I don't feel worthy of a bowl of damned soup!

In the end, I will just have to keep taking care of myself.  Doesn't matter how sorry I feel for myself; a glass of water, a bite to eat, these things don't just up and get themselves for me.  As with many other instances in life, I will just plow through, carry on, and do for myself what the tiny voice in the back of my head wishes someone else would do for me, just this once.

Mirror, Mirror

I don't often look in the mirror.  Mirrors are not kind to people like me, people who don't see themselves truly but rather through ugly filters, through lenses smirched with years of grime, accumulated unhappiness and unfortunate experience.

I don't look in the mirror when I comb my hair, when I brush my teeth, when I apply lip balm.

I don't like what I see.

I see wrinkles and hairs that escaped the scrunchie and loose skin from weight loss and spots and age.  I see thin lips not suitable for kissing and dark circles under dull eyes.  If my gaze strays to my body, I see sagging, flab, loose and wrinkly skin, things that show weight loss but make for horrors under my clothes.

I was never young.

Rare are the occasions I gaze intentionally into a reflective surface.

Rarer still are the times when I don't wince at what I see, or perhaps even think it's not so bad.

Sometimes there's a brightness to my eyes.  Sometimes I think my cheekbones are pretty good.  My lips will never be accused of being kissable, certainly never pouty or plump, but when I smile I have a dimple...didn't people used to like dimples?..and if the crinkles around my eyes are a bit deep, well...at least I can finally say I have smile lines.  Also, my ears don't stick out, and I seem to recall that not-sticking-out ears are a plus.  Also, also, they are pretty evenly hung on my head, so there's that.

Tonight I was laughing at my daughter's antics in the tub and happened to catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror.  I stopped and looked.  It was...uncomfortable...

I wonder if I will ever see myself as others do, hopefully with kinder eyes and gentler thoughts...

Effort

It's late...or early...depending upon your perspective.  I can't sleep.  I want to.  I just can't.

I've been lying awake, wondering...

My parents divorced before I could form a memory of a father.  Until my teens he wasn't much of a presence in my life.  Hell, I didn't realize that one was supposed to have a father until I was just about through my first decade.

I can understand why he wouldn't want much to do with me now that I'm grown...after all, I've certainly been one huge disappointment after another to him, given him no reason to be bothered with me...but what did baby me do that made it so easy for him to walk away and not look back?  Why wasn't his daughter, the child, I mean, worth even a little effort on his part?

Then there's my now-ex-husband.  He made it pretty damned plain that our marriage wasn't worth the effort.  He'll protest...he'll swear, even now, that he loved me, still does, and the words were nice...but when push came to shove, when it came down to showing love through actions, well...I wasn't worth the effort, was I?

I've been attracted to others over the years, and most of them weren't interested, or clearly stated that I wasn't worth whatever effort it would take on their part to have anything more than a mild flirtation.  Twenty some odd years down the line, still barely worth the smile and a few hastily spoken words, maybe a few minutes of playful chat, but nothing more.

My current partner, the person I though I might finally have found a lifetime in?  Yeah, well...he's terrified of losing me, he says...of losing our family...of me leaving him...but as it turns out, I'm not worth any actual effort on that score either.  The alcohol, the pot, the meth, are more important, enough so that he is once again in jail because drinking twelve beers less than a day after he was out for the last probation violation meant more to him than being with his family for the holidays.

Not.  Worth.  The.  Effort.

Loud and clear and coming at me from seemingly every damned direction. Not worth answering the phone for.  Not worth reading.  Not worth writing.  Not worth calling.  Not worth it.

Here in the small hours, alone, cold, tired, worn and weary and wishing I had the simplest touch, just a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on, I am painfully aware of how not worth the effort I am, and there's no getting around it.  If I was worth it I wouldn't spend these hours feeling so fucking lonely because I'd be resting snug against someone who finds lying next to me more important than twelve beers, or whatever the distraction is that leaves me struggling to breathe in dark, cloying silence rereading old, sweet words and wondering if they ever meant anything at all, and if they did, what happened to make them moot, to render me no longer worthy of whatever it took to write or say them?

How the fuck am I supposed to believe anyone who says I matter when behavior tells me so clearly that I don't, that in the end all I can count on is this feeling that the reassurances are hollow and won't be suited to action?

It's awfully bleak, this feeling that when it comes to actual effort and not simply glib words, any expenditure of effort is too much.

I'd like to believe, really I would, but I just can't.

It's not worth the effort.

Damp Linens

I know I'm not the only woman who cries in silence, tears soaking her pillow, curled around herself as she tries to contain the aching emptiness that threatens to consume her.

I know I'm not alone in wondering why I should be so lonely.

But dear Goddess, right now in this moment I feel so isolated, so lost in the shadows, and I can't convince myself that there's any way out of it or that there's anyone or anything that can (or wants to) throw me a line, however tenuous, to help me pull myself into a better place.

Back to dreams, back to the ephemeral, illusory comfort of he-who-never-was because my psyche doesn't want to accept that maybe this is all we get - an empty bed, empty arms, and a heart full of thick, smothering aloneness that leaves me fighting to breathe and wondering where I went so terribly wrong.

Hello Again

There are darker places to be than where I've been for the last year, for the last more than a year.

Darker, worser, angrier, hate-ier,unhappier places.

I am sure of it.

I can't name any off hand right now, but I can't believe I've found the deepest, darkest holes to crawl into.

I'm feeling like I don't exist, like I don't have substance, that I'm just kind of here in a corner kind of waiting and not much mattering, until the door opens and I can step through to the other side and be done with all this mess.

I am tired, my friends...exhausted...worn slap out, squeezed dry, used up, done.

I don't honestly know that I will bounce back.  Probably.  I mean, I always have.  But I think...it will be...a much more difficult bounce.

It's Just Water, After All

I am crying.

I am crying because I am tired.  Because I have had a long week of exceedingly early mornings, late nights, and not much down time in between, and I have had my two kids with me almost the entire time with no break, no rest, no help.

I am crying because I am sexually frustrated, and because I feel unwanted unless he's aroused and desperate, and blamed when he's frustrated because I am exhausted and don't wake up when he climbs into bed after I've fallen asleep, and makes advances.

I am crying because while I was working all week a crockpot full of pot roast was rotting on the counter, even days after I asked him to please empty it, because while I was away last week he put it on to warm but then left it out, so it has been festering for 8 days.

I am crying because one of the cats has suddenly started peeing and pooping on the table, the kitchen counter, in the hallway, and on the clean laundry in the hamper that I haven't folded because I haven't had time.

I am crying because I am supposed to be sewing a quilt for a charity auction but I can't seem to get it done; every time I try someone or something else needs my attention, and so for the first time in my life I will break my word and be a worthless oathbreaker.

I am crying because the dryer vent hose keeps detaching from the wall vent, and he said he would fix it more than a week ago but hasn't, so I have had to squeeze into the tiny space between dryer and wall and try to fix it so I can do laundry.

I am crying because he gets angry at the mess I haven't cleaned up because I am trying to clean up the beer bottles, the bottles caps (which I usually find with my feet), the spilled booze, coffee, water, seasoning mix, vomit in the sink, shit on the toilet seat, and other assorted messes he leaves behind but swears he doesn't.

I am crying because I have pulled or done something to a muscle in my neck/shoulder area and it hurts, hurts, hurts and I can't do anything about it because there is so much I have to do around the house and holding the toddler makes it worse but she WILL be held or whine, whine, whine, cry, cry, cry and I will scream at her to shut the fuck up because I will break, have broken, and can't stand the fucking noise, noise, noise.

I am crying because he went somewhere to meet someone and got lost and called me to get directions to a place I have never been and don't know and then screamed at me and hung up on me and called me back and yelled at me because he told me three different places he was at and expected me to instantly find him on the map and give directions, and my phone died and he called the other phone and chastised me even more because I didn't answer when he hung up on me and then called back, then yelled at me again because I was trying to give him the directions he asked for and it was wrong because he wasn't at the place he said he was at, but somewhere else, and I don't know where that is and can't just instinctively find it on the map but actually have to look...and he has a mapping app on his phone that he could use but for some reason doesn't.

I am crying because I feel like I have nothing left to give, or at least nothing left that anyone wants.

I am crying because my life is inundated with the stench of shit, piss, rot, and filth.

I am crying because I am cold and don't dare turn up the heat, I am hungry but am weary of being the only one who cooks for the family and even if I have just fed the kids if I make anything for myself they want it and circle me like buzzards begging to share with me and I don't have it in me to deal with that right now.

I am crying because I feel awfully alone when it comes to dealing with these kids, unless there is criticism to be offered and then I have plenty of people, even strangers, happy to tell me how I am doing it wrong and ruining my beautiful children who love me despite my ineptitude, and how I should be raising them instead.

I am crying because in the beginning I thought he loved me, believed he loved me, and now I think he just resents me for what I cannot be or do and wishes he wasn't trapped in this festering life with me, could leave me behind and think of me only as that fat, nasty bitch who tried to ensnare him and didn't care and treated him so poorly and how lucky he is not to be stuck with HER any more.

I am crying because I want love but know, deep down, I don't deserve it and don't get to have it, but that doesn't stop me wanting it so much I ache constantly and sometimes try to believe I can have it but then find it's just an illusion and I don't deserve love, I deserve scorn and derision and abandonment and to be shown over and over that I am worthless, useless, not worth the effort.

I am crying because I am a curse, and anyone who is involved with me soon has cause to regret it because all I do is ruin lives.

I am crying because I have swept the floor three times this morning and it is messy again.

I am crying because I wonder if I will ever be able to just love and be loved without it turning to shit because it's me and that's what I am due...shit...

I am crying because even when I am away, I am responsible for what happens here, and there's no peace, no quiet, no rest at all and I worry about his drunkenness and anger and what is happening to the house, the animals, the children, worrying about the mess I will have to clean up when I get home despite having left a clean house before I left, because I am the only one who should be doing that sort of work, I am the woman and the mother and why should anyone else do it, and people are judging me and I am selfish and horrible for asking for a few days in a year, how dare I?

I am crying because there is no one here to see and feel burdened by it, because I don't get to cry or feel bad when there's a witness because that's an imposition and no one wants to suffer through that, it's too much to ask, really, and anyway I have no right to complain because I deserve this, I brought it on myself, and since everyone else is so much wiser and better than I am I should listen to them and live my life according to their advice and since I don't, I can just deal with it alone because I am too stupid to listen.

I am...crying...

It Must Be Nice

It must be nice to talk to someone on the phone and hear sweet words instead of anger and blame.

It must be nice to feel loved wanted instead of resented.

It must be nice to feel cherished.

It must be nice to be held.

It must be nice not to be yelled at all the time for things that aren't your fault.

It must be nice to know you can go somewhere without worrying about who is watching the kids, and how.

It must be nice not to have to struggle and beg and wrangle and plead to have a few precious minutes of peace.

It must be nice to be loved.

It must be nice.  I wouldn't know.

EnvyGrief

So.

A friend passed away a few months ago.  Her family held the memorial this past weekend.

For more than a month I have had to ask, cajole, remind, and worry about whether He would watch the kids so I could go.  He agreed to, but sometimes...a lot of times...he forgets things.  Alcohol and pot will do that to a body.  It worries and frustrates me, and I have to constantly take memory loss into account when making plans.

I went to the memorial, a trip that meant I was away from Friday night until Sunday afternoon.  I wanted to leave earlier on Friday, but it didn't work out.  The Boy's father picked him up on Friday, so He only had the girl to contend with.  I even arranged for a friend to come over and help out Friday night and Saturday morning.

At one point He was irritated because he had worked all week and now he wasn't getting to  have a weekend.  I bit my tongue.  When's the last time I had a weekend?  Hell, when's the last time I had an hour, or even fifteen minutes???

I went, came home.  He was somewhere else, but brought the Girl home.  Then he left again, went off to have some "quiet time" because he's had the Girl for all that time.

I don't get to have quiet time.

Then he was gone for hours - off playing at the lake with some friends, diving in the water, drinking, smoking pot, having a fine old time.

I didn't know where he was, and he did't let me know he'd be late.  I got dinner.  Got the Girl bathed, got both kids to bed, and wondered.

It isn't nice to feel lonely, superfluous, unwanted.  How on earth is one lonely when one has two kids, a man, four cats, and assorted other critters about?  I manage.

When He told me what he'd been up to, I thought it sounded nice.  And I was glad he'd had fun.  But...I had some unhappy thoughts, too.  Thoughts I couldn't voice because he would take them wrong, take them as a judgement, as offensive.

I wondered what would happen if I just...left...saying I was only going to be an hour but not coming home until midnight or after?  What would happen if I didn't call or text or let him know where I was or what I was doing, if I left him home with the two kids and went off and had my fun and never once thought about how he was?

I can't just take off for some peace or to hang out with friends.  I must bring the children with me or find someone to watch them, or else I have to ask and ask and be willing to endure the bitterness, the talk of inconvenience and how HE can't do what HE wants because I need an hour here and there, or because I would like to do something that cannot include the children.  I feel like I have to beg to simply run to the grocery store, and of course even that small thing is a big deal because it means he has to parent, and how dare I ask him to do that?  And when I DO manage to get a little time for me, it is broken up by phone calls, texts, questions about where's this or what's that or how the kids won't behave or he can't find something or something has gone wrong, angry voice, angry words, on and on.

The thing is...the Girl loves her father.  She adores spending time with him, is always excited when he comes home from work, delighted to have his attention and to share the world with him.  And he loves her.  He loves watching her play, loves playing with her...but only on his terms, when he feels like it...and if it gets in the way of anything else, he becomes bitter and angry.

I was thinking, last night, that it must be nice to be able to just take off without worrying if someone else is having to take up the slack or work around your absence.  I wonder what that's like...

Bitter Pill

"...the bitter pill I swallow is this love that's killing me..."

Last week, a person I do not know told me I was hot.  I asked him when he last had his eyes checked.

Last week, the same person told me that I need to believe I am worth loving.  I shrugged.

Last week, a different person told me I deserve better, I deserve a good partner who will treat me well, a partner who didn't constantly treat me with anger, derision, abuse.  I laughed and told her I don't get to have that.  I don't get to have kindness, compassion, and decency.  I get to have neglect, boredom, blame, anger, recrimination, and misery...or I can be alone.  The good ones?  Elsewhere interested, always.

I have this deep well of love that is constantly being drained but never refilled. I have this aching need for comfort and kindness that is never met, leaving me feeling alone and empty.  I would like to feel loved, accepted, cherished...but in reality all I feel is unacceptable and wrong.

I'd like just to be held close without feeling as if I am only being held so I will give a blowjob or have sex, and if I don't perform the sexual favors then I don't get to be held.

When even my words are useless because they cannot, will not, be heard, then I am useless...because my words are what define me, what make me, are my best and most powerful art and tool, and without them I am just a fat lump of flesh, a mass of excess protoplasm with nothing to offer except an example of what NOT to be.

Polyamorous.  What a laugh.  HE'S poly.  HE can take a partner whenever he wants, without so much as letting me know or giving me the tiniest bit of respect and asking me first...but I cannot even so much as speak to another man (even if I have no sexual interest and am just having a conversation) without there being rage...sometimes days of it...and accusations that I'm trying to replace him.  And when I point this out?  More rage and assertions that he is NOT jealous, that I should go find another man and fuck him and see how NOT jealous he is.

As if I could, or wanted to.

Worthy of love, me?  Hah!

It doesn't matter how much I say with my worthless words, doesn't matter what I do to show...he is convinced that I don't care and just want him gone, and the way he treats me and the kids and the cats and my friends the way he speaks and acts around everyone, as if we owe him something or are always secretly judging him or snickering at him...well...he's creating the very thing he has been accusing me of for years...not wanting to be around him.

God damn, but I'm tired of this morass of exhaustion and anger and accusation and hurt and blame and useless, pointless love...

The Woman Who Doesn't Care

This is how she thinks, the woman who doesn't care:
"There are only ten meatballs left.  Okay, well, if I only take two that will leave eight for him, which should be okay.  I don't really need them, any way."

And:
"Oh, how I would love some corn on the cob.  but he doesn't like corn on the cob.  I guess I'll cook green beans, instead."

And:
"I haven't roasted a chicken in a while, and I am craving it...but...he says he hates chicken...so...well...something else for dinner then.  Maybe I can make chicken when he's not here one night..."

And:
"I really want this book...haven't had a new one for years...but...if I buy this, then he will not have money for beer.  Oh, well...I can always try and find a book at the library if I can make it over there."

And:
"Oh, my shoes are worn so thin I can feel everything through the soles.  Thirty dollars for a new pair...whew...but then he won't have the new glass carboy he's been wanting...well, these shoes will last another year..."

And:
"I need clean clothes, but there's only a little bit of detergent left.  I guess I can wait...the kid need clean things and he needs to run a load of socks..."

And:
"I'd really like a little time for myself...but I am working this weekend and he'll have to watch the kids, so I can't ask him to watch them now because that wouldn't be fair, so I will just take them with me and give him a little respite before the weekend."

And:
"I'm so tired...and I got to bed later than him because there were all those dishes to do and I wanted to write a little and I can only do that when the kids are in bed, but he's asleep and the baby's up, so I'll get up with her and let him sleep a bit more, and maybe I can catch a nap with her later..."

But don't let what she thinks, says, or does fool you - he says she doesn't care so often, it must be true.

If This Is Love...

Why am I the only one who can change a nappy, do a dish, do laundry, feed a child, clean the floor?

Why is it that when I don't get something done, it's an affront to humanity, but when others don't follow through it's no big deal?

Why am I the one who gets up with the baby at night and in the morning while he sleeps as late as he likes?

Why is it that it's okay to play music or the TV as loud as desired when I'm sleeping, but the slightest whisper of noise cannot be tolerated when he's at rest, even when he's at rest until the middle of the day?

When I want comfort, touch, sex, it's okay for him to be too tired, too busy, too grumpy, but when the shoe's on the other foot?  It must mean I don't love him any more and want to replace him.

How is it that it's okay for him to go meet other women, to chat and flirt online, to tell others that I am fat and nasty, to post requests for hot, sexy women to come meet him for sex, but I can't even have a conversation with someone I have never met, don't wish to meet, have made it clear I'm not interested in, then I am actively looking to replace him and must not want him any more.

Why is it okay for him to meet these other women, tell me he's NOT going to have sex with them, then have sex and not tell me, but if I don't disclose every detail of every conversation I have with another man, I am lying, cheating, and hiding from him?

Why is it okay for him to pull a blanket off of me while I sleep (sick, no less) so he can fuck his other girlfriend on the ground outside camp, but I can't even smile at another man without wanting to be rid of him?

If I don't talk about the bills I can't pay or they way I'm feeling or what I "need" or remain silent when I don't like something, then I am not treating him like a partner.  When I do dare to speak, I'm told to shut up, told my feelings are invalid, interrupted, silenced, ignored, walked away from, or treated like an imposition.

If I don't answer the phone when he's calling, I am left nasty messages and yelled at, but if he doesn't answer when I call it's just fine?  And why is it that he can call me even when he knows I am in the middle of something (maybe even something important), and if I am not ready to drop everything for his call I'm a bitch and don't care, but if I call him and so much as interrupt a computer game I am treated with impatience and rudeness until I hang up.

Why is it okay for him to hang up on me, but if I do the same rather than endure vituperative rants and abuse I am a bitch?  Why is it okay for him to call at all hours and be angry and bitter if I don't answer right away and immediately ready to help, but I can't call in the middle of the day without being an imposition?

Why is it my fault he stayed up until the wee hours, long after I went to be, and he's sexually frustrated because I am not ready and waiting for him when he finally settles down?

Why is my weariness an affront to him?  But it's okay for him to be too tired...

How am I rejecting him when I reach for him and he turns away?

If I don't ask for help, I do't want him.  If I do ask for help, I'm being a bother.

I try to make sure that at least once a week I take the kids out and give him some quiet time because he needs it.  I do not receive the same consideration.

I try to make sure that he has ample opportunity to go out without me or the kids so he can have some peace and decompress, and that's fine, but on the rare occasions when I ask (because I have to ask, it's not offered) for a few hours for myself, time not related to working or running errands, I may as well be asking for the moon and am creating a huge imposition.

I have to write, clean, eat, and sometimes even sleep holding the toddler to keep her from whining and crying or risk hearing shouts and angry words, but when others are on the computer (playing games, mind you, not exactly saving the world or anything) and she makes noise, it's an irritant and cause for hard words and anger because I can't make her shut up.

If it needs doing, no matter what else I am doing or have done, I am the one who is supposed to do it, even if I'm sick, hurt, tired, or holding the baby.  If I fail to get it done, I don't care about him, don't want him, or am nasty.

Why is it okay for him to be angry with me for days, ignore me, say rude, angry, or mean things, but if I'm not instantly over his anger I am a bitch who is holding a grudge?

Why do I work and work and work, listen and listen and listen, helping him work through his issues, but I can't even finish a sentence when I try to share my thoughts?

Why is it okay for him to interrupt me, cut me off, or silence me, then get angry when I don't speak?  And why is it that, just by asking him to let me finish what I'm saying, I want a silent man, I don't care about him or what he has to say?

Why is there always money for beer, but never enough for tires, or nappies, or to pay bills, or buy toilet paper or medicine for the baby?    How is it there's money for motel rooms to nmeet other women in, but not to buy warm clothes for the children for winter?  And why is it all my burden to carry?

How can anyone claim they care about how their actions impact others but keep on acting like they don't care?  And what right do they have to be upset when I don't believe them any more?

Now the toddler is crying, and I have to stop writing because if I don't silence her, I don't care about his need for rest...but if I ever get to "sleep in", it's just fine for her to cry, whine, make noise, for him to play music or the TV as loud as he likes, and if I ask him to turn it down, or if I close the bedroom door, I'm being a bitch.

What the hell?

Inevitable Slide

It must be me.

A pheromone, a hormone, a subliminal signal.

Something I exude.

What else explains it? It starts off slowly, going to bed at different times when he used to drop everything to crawl in with me. A movie on TV is more interesting than the conversation we used to enjoy. Hours and hours on the computer playing games and surfing websites, back turned on the family, annoyed when interrupted, spending more time and effort talking to people online than in the real, live, warm, curious, loving people right here in the same room. Porn sites more alluring than the woman in the next room.

Never reading my words, no longer interested in what I have to say even when it's simply "I love you", looking irritated when I speak and he is reading or typing or playing online.

It happened before...it's happening now...and since I am the common factor, it must be me. I guess I'm just not worth the effort.

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.

Not That Complicated

The rules are simple:

Don't lie to me.

Don't break your word to me.

Don't steal from me.

I Don't Have Answers

There are so many things I don't understand. So many things I do not know. So many things I cannot do...and in trying, I can but fail.

The Angel is a person of words. She speaks, in earnest, and that is all she has. All I have.

Words won...what? What can words win when there is no faith in them, when they mean nothing, less than nothing, are tossed around like so much chaff to be swept away and forgotten?

Why should I bother speaking, when it has no meaning? I cannot fathom how the two things...words won...they're just meaningless words...how the two things are supposed to coexist. Ether they are, or they are not, real. I have no in between.

What more must I do, what more must I give or give over, before there is faith, trust? Does anyone believe in me? Have they ever? Or has it all been words, words, words, empty, useless, stupid, manipulative, worthless words?

I'm tired of words. I'm tired of wondering what things mean when they clearly don't mean what they're supposed to. I do not have a dictionary, a lexicon, that gives me insight into the warping and twisting that others so clearly comprehend. I speak several languages, but apparently not the right ones because I feel, more and more, that I am lost among strangers who have no care for my confusion, only for their own needs which I can clearly not meet because I do not understand them.

I'm tired of hearing sweet words and wondering where the barbs are hidden. I'm tired of hearing sweet words and wondering when the hard words will follow.

I would like to believe, again, in the one thing that gave me a sense of power, of strength, of ability, of pride...the one thing that I now find failing me completely.

I would like to be done with words, since they're so useless...but as useless as my words are, as useless as I am...they're all I have.

As I cannot be done with them, I suppose I will have to learn how to empty them of meaning, to speak or write empty things and keep myself to myself...excepting here and one other place...so not entirely silent or devoid of content, but only where I live and with people who are more real to me that you few who linger here in the shadows with me, as ephemeral as my own self is to you. You shadows will have the truth of me, then, and the people who should know, well...they won't see and won't miss what they clearly never had or wanted in the first place, if I am to believe their words more than they believe mine.

Do not ever tell me that my words have meaning to you. I cannot afford to believe, to hope, that there's truth somewhere in the lie, not again, not any more, not when I will be constantly waiting to hear that they're worthless, after all.

A Bit of Wist

Sometimes I feel terribly lonely.

Sometimes I feel as though I do not matter.

Sometimes I feel as though my words are unseen, unheard, unheeded, unwanted, unwelcome.

Sometimes I wonder how long I'm supposed to keep reaching, when what Iam reaching for pulls away.

Sometimes I wonder if I am only here to do the work so that someone else can have the love.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever feel as though I count for anything.

Sometimes I wish I, too, had another lover, someone to talk to, someone who didn't make me feel unseen, unheard, unheeded, unwanted, unwelcome, someone who would help drive away this hurt, lonely feeling that weighs me down, wears me out.

Scorched Earth

I reached for you last night, and you pulled away.

I reached again, and you flinched from under my hand.

I reached a third time, and you pulled away once more.

Then you leaned into me, and I though you wanted me...until you shrugged off my hand and instead leaned down to my belly. It wasn't me you wanted, but the baby.

A final time I tried, and was rebuffed.

So I moved over as far as I could to give you room, to keep from intruding upon you, so that I wouldn't accidentally brush against you with my obviously unwelcome touch. All night, I hoped you'd reach for me...with a brush of your fingers tell me it was OK, that I could move back into the circle of your arms, that I could have your warmth again. And all night, nothing.

This morning, I hoped again...perhaps he'll touch me now...

Nothing.

I could have made the effort. I always have in the past. But I thought, no, he doesn't want me right now. When he does, he'll touch, or speak, or show some sign, and until then I won't pester.

So I went downstairs to be out of the way. I felt as though simply being in the room was an intrusion. I didn't bother with breakfast or the computer, just took myself out of the way. Twice, when you came downstairs, I said "Good morning" and twice was met with silence.

When I finally came back upstairs, I looked your way, but you didn't turn from the screen, didn't want to see me there. So I went and folded laundry and kept company with my lonely thoughts.

I wondered...if I stopped writing, would anyone notice? If I stopped singing, would anyone hear the silence? If I stopped going out into the world, would anyone miss me? If I stopped reaching, making the effort, would anyone care?

I have my answer. No.

I wonder - should I have reached one more time? Should I have risked being shunned in the hopes that this time I'd be welcomed?

I feel stupid for hoping that some day, maybe, someone will reach for me, for a change. Why would they? No one ever has...no one ever will...and I'm tired of being burned and blackened and left behind, wasted, worthless, and worn.

If I'm not heard when I speak, what difference will my silence make? If I'm not read when I write, what difference does my stillness make? If I'm not noticed when I'm there in the room, what difference will my absence make? If I'm not felt or wanted when I seek to touch, what difference does my withdrawal make?

None at all.

Because you can't miss nothing, now can you?

Three Things/How I Could Do I/If This Isn't the Lesson You Want Me To Learn, Then Quit Teaching It

I prayed for three things, today.

I prayed that when the baby is born, I bleed to death. If the only future I have to look forward to is watching it slowly dawn on my daughter that her mother is a worthless, useless fuckup...why should I want to live for that? Better she should never know me. It's not that I don't want to be here for her...I do...but if there's not a hope in hell that our future can be happy...why subject her to the added misery of bearing me as her burden?

I prayed that the gods take away my music. Strike me mute. No more singing or song writing. I don't want it. Why should I? What good does it do? No one gives a good god damn. What's the point of wanting to sing, to reach others...if no one's listening?

I prayed that the gods take away the stories. No one wants those any more than they want me. I have proof - rejection after rejection from agent after agent. Why try? Why allow myself to be driven, to shape words into images that no one wants to read?

I'm tired of being pointless.
~~~~~
I have spent the last few hours thinking these thoughts...may as well write 'em out. No one reads them, no one cares anyway, can't hurt to put them here.

I can't kill myself. I made a promise. I have never broken my word. But I can sure want to. And I can think about how I'd do it. I can fantasize about the day my word means less to me than this emptiness.

Not a gun. Too messy. I would not like to give anyone another reason to hate me, to think me worthless, selfish...

There's always aspirin. We've got a few bottles of that around here. I can swallow a lot of pills. But no. It's been done, and it's too easy to catch and reverse...and if it fails, the results can be...unfortunate.

A razor, perhaps? I used to think that was how I'd do it. Draw up a nice warm bath. Two good slices, placed just right, and I could open up veins without touching a tendon, bleed out in minutes. It would be less mess for anyone to clean up after...just remove the carcass and rinse out the tub, no worries.

I think if I was to do it now, though...it'd be poetic. I have several vials of insulin. I could inject the entirety of one in a matter of moments...and there's nothing could be done about it, if anyone even cared to try.
~~~~~
Alright already...I get it. I am worth less than a damned computer game, less than addiction, less than the cat shit out in the garden. My hurt is meaningless and no one, not ONE person, gives a good god damn.

If that's not the lesson you wish me to learn, O Universe, then quite teaching it to me. The point has been driven home enough times in the last little while...I don't need any more reminders that I don't deserve to be happy and any time I begin to feel the slightest joy, I should quash it or accept that you will do so for me.

I am done chasing after people and begging them to love me. I am done believing that anyone actually does, has, or ever could. I am done forcing anyone to endure my love. No more illusion on that front, O Universe, so you can leave me alone and go pick on someone else.

I am NOT loved. I am NOT wanted. I am NOT needed. I am a fat, ugly, disgusting, slovenly, stupid, unnecessary burden to be borne, and I would do the world a favor if I simply quit foisting myself upon it. I get it. Thank you.