alone jealous & stoned

Rattling against the bars of my destiny.

Ancient wounds you gave me. You gave me. You gave me. Hidden under pretense, festering beneath years. I tried to forget. I try. Your long tail encircles me still. Vile.

Two paths diverged in the woods. I didn’t want to take either, so I dragged you into the wilderness with me. A desperate, wild attempt to find an alternative. I see the burrs on your ankles, the scratches on your arms. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Just a little farther. We’ll find something, I swear.

You’ve etched yourself onto the walls of my psyche. Everywhere I look, evidence of you. A kind of madness.

How desperately I want to believe the pictures you paint for us. But history. But experience. But daily details grinding against us. We may rail, again and again, and we will—until we collapse once more into a life beyond reach.

Shapeshifter. I hold your gaze and watch flashes of something sinister dance across those eyes. You are two people. One wants to love and be loved. The other… I shudder to consider. An unrelenting drive to possess and control.

Dark clouds roll in. An ominous aura. I feel it coming, a horse stamping in the stable. You are the storm.

You spin your yarn, you build your web. I bumble into it, always. Ensnared.

Plausible deniability is your weapon of choice, and, darling, you wield it like a samurai.

You changed me. No doubt about that. You changed me into someone kinder, stronger, calmer. Who could I have become if you hadn’t discarded me? Your final lesson, perhaps.

I touched someone else’s body last night. Heartbreaking to kiss lips that weren’t yours.

You came to me with an offer. “I will love you unconditionally.” Of course, the price was the same. A price I could never pay.

I do not need to question why you left. That much is clear. But what I cannot account for—the truly confounding matter—is why you ever stayed in the first place. Why were you here?

I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you needed to be loved.

You threw pretty promises at me like glitter, and I’m left with glinting detritus. Such lovely hollow words winking from every crevice. I cannot move without remembering.

I left a mark on you, indelible, that little pink spot on your shoulder. You know the one. Where my teeth sank that day when I wanted you and was too foolish and proud to say it, even in the murmuring corners of my own murky mind.

I am tormented by flashes of your smile, your upturned lips as you whispered, “daddy”

A part of me will always belong to you.

I once held a beautiful woman in my arms, and she stroked my chest as she said, “I can’t believe we get this. People don’t get this.” She looked at me and smiled. I felt envy. “We’re lucky,” I said and kissed her forehead. I chose not to mention the times I’d had this before.

Think you recognize me? You don’t.

Alas

Arthur Sarnoff