How is it you can be with someone and still feel totally and utterly alone?
I am not even sure how I got here, I certainly never planned it. But, I guess you never plan on love manifesting as an addiction, a curse and a blessing all rolled into one hot mess.
It is the waking hours that are worst, if you can believe it. When you are asleep next to me, you are a source of comfort, a gentle reminder that i am not alone in this world. So why are you so angry at the world, at me, when those beautiful eyes open to greet the day?
I have taken to watching you sleep, and slipping out of our warm bed to start my day before you wake up so I do not see this terrible transformation. I tried to be gentle and loving. A simple "Hey, you." uttered in a soft voice and accompanied by a lazy smile was meant to entice you to return to our warm bed so we could cuddle before starting the day. My good intentions end in a hard stare and an accusation. Why am I asking so many questions? What do I want from you? You ask me these things as you throw your clothes on awkwardly, as if i have no right to see you naked, to express my admiration of your body.
These are good questions, though. I want you to wake up with a smile on your face, a smile that happens because when you open those eyes and see me, it makes you smile like you make me smile. I would rather go with the memory of you sleeping peacefully, your blonde hair tussled and hiding your face against the pillow, then with the last words you said to me this morning. "Don't call me." These are the words I hear before I leave to face the day and it makes my chest contract painfully around my heart as I realize I am not the most important thing in your life at this moment in time. I wait until I get into my car and drive away before I let my tears fall. I have only a short time to let my grief run through me freely before i have to get myself together. There is only so many times i can blame a reddened face and bloodshot eyes on a cold, on allergies, or just not getting enough sleep.
Yesterday, you made it downstairs before me and I found you sitting on the far side of the couch as I searched for my keys and put on my coat to go out into the cold. Your body was turned away from me, facing the wall at an angle so that I was met with your shoulders and the back of your head. Your body language and position said it all, you had no need or desire to speak to me. When I left, you got up and hugged me, but your face remained turned away, instead of tucking your face into my neck like you used to. You move away from me but I grasp for your hands in desperation and try for another embrace, with the same result. I try to look at you and your eyes slide away from me like a skittish colt, shying away from me. I beg you to look at me, and you do finally, but with irritation and anger flashing beneath drawn eyebrows. You ask me what I want from you and accuse me yet again of something, I am not even sure what, like I am subjecting you to some kind of inquisition in asking for your affection.
Again, I leave for my office, taking my time to get there so i can recover from the agony of your rejection. The pressure there brings tears to my eyes despite my best intentions to hold them inside. They fall anyway, hidden behind my windshield wipers as the sky cries with me, even the rain seems to know my mood. This stabbing pain, so deep it leaves scars that bleed inside me, makes me wish I could take my heart out and put it in a box to protect myself. Even that solution offers no release from the heaviness in my soul.
My nerves feel raw, scraped and bruised and over sensitive to the least invasion into my emotional state. I find myself shutting down, it would be so easy to become who I had been in the past, to play on power and not care who I hurt or even why, only that I could.
I wait for my daily email from you. It used to be a joke, that you would send me an email before i was even on the road, telling me how much you missed me and loved me. Now, the email comes after I get to work and only after I text you to tell you I am here safe. Then, i get the "I love you's" I am desperate to hear, the "I miss you's" that I almost don't believe. After all, why would you ignore me when I was home to miss me when I am not? I find my texts becoming shorter and more terse. This morning, I simply typed "here"...you responded with the same words you use everyday...
"I Love you, I hope you have a good day, I miss you." Why can you send this to me and not say it to my face. I want you to miss me before I leave, I want to feel that caring in person, not on an impersonal screen that offers me no human companionship.
Do you even notice my texts becoming shorter and shorter? Do you even wonder why they have become so? Or, worse yet, are you aware and don't care to ask me why? I find myself asking these questions at odd times during the day, and I feel my eyes burn and sting as salt gathers there. I find myself stoking the anger deep inside me, so that I can keep the fear and agony out of my face. I would rather be angry and have others fear my wrath, then have them look at me with empathy and compassion in their eyes for my suffering. I couldn't bear someone asking me if anything was wrong, it would be my undoing and I cannot allow myself the liberty of falling apart at work. It wouldn't do for others to see my weakness, to know I have the same fears as they do, or even that they might enjoy knowing the wreck my life has become.
But still, I know there is love there, it is intense and overpowering, and it holds me in its thrall. But, something has gone seriously wrong and I wonder who has twisted this thing that is at once beautiful and terrible and horribly scarred all at once. I know that something is wrong because I find myself avoiding writing that I love you, not because I don't, but because each time i do it I feel the tight pain of rejection rise up in my throat again. I can't swallow. My mouth goes dry in fear that I will one day simply say these words in some rote manner, an automatic response that has no meaning. I cannot do this to you or to me, so I shy away from simply saying something because it is expected of me. It hurts me too much to say it sometimes when i feel each word slice into me like a hot knife as I realize how much power those words and you hold over me. I find myself becoming jealous of all those hearts I stole over the years. Did I keep them from feeling this intense pain by locking away their ability to feel this way? Worse yet, is this payback for all the pain and suffering I have wrought over the years? Perhaps it is simply that you feel I have too much power and you have none, and this is how you keep some semblance of balance in our relationship? Don't you realize that you already hold so much power over me in ways I could never imagine?
What do you do when true loves kiss has become a curse? Has anyone considered how twisted love can be when they speak of this concept in awe, like it is always something pure and wonderful and unfailing? How can two twisted and broken souls express true love in its purest form? I don't think they can, because I sure haven't figured it out, and I am quiet talented at figuring out riddles such as this.
When we make love, I find my need to feel something so intensely, I beg you for more of everything. I find the sharp pain of your teeth against my breast exhilarating, the pressure of your fingers inside filling me until I can imagine what it would be like to have your fist inside me, both moving me with an exquisite pain mixed with guilty pleasure. But this is an honest pain, this controlled violence we engage in. It is something I understand from the depths of my being, and it has the power sends me over the edge quickly, my orgasm breaking over me like a thousand tiny shards of glass exploding in my mind. You bring me, and i hear the obscenities that are torn from me as if from a strangers throat as I scratch and claw at the sheets. Again, this is the power you hold over me, and it scares me because you do not seem to understand your ability to keep me chained to you.
When I come back to myself, I revel in the affect that making love to me does to you. You are hot and wet and ready for me, and I try to make it last. I love your smell, and find myself burying my face in your neck, sucking on tender flesh as I find the rhythm I know will give you the most pleasure. When it is over, I lose you again as you cover up and turn your back to me, quickly falling asleep. I turn into my pillow and hug it quietly, finding sleep the most effective way to not think about my life. In sleep, I do not feel the pain in my heart. Sleep is oblivion, a break from the loneliness I feel when we are together but not with each other. We sleep back to back, not touching, and I realize that although we are sharing the warmth of one bed, we are not sharing each others warmth. I consider turning over and attempting to curl myself around you, but find that I could not bear the rebuff. Sleep is lost to me in that moment of revelation, and I slide out of the blankets and out of the bedroom. There is always work to do, bills to pay, windows to look out of and wishes to make that someone would notice my absence and ask me to return upstairs. I find myself saddened at how sad my life has become and return to my original question...
How can you be with someone and still feel totally and utterly alone?