Fight Night

 February 26, 2021

I can still remember what it was like to have a voice. A full-color photo, ties worn as belts and the nature of necklines too conventional for my scissors-in-the-handbag ways. Wait. That’s a lie. When have I ever carried a ‘handbag’?

I’m living with a man I love. I mean.. Love. He’s got the dark eyes, light green in the afternoon sun, and the strong chin with the softest hugs… he is all heart. But, each day drags on. A veritable 7/11 of possible choices with which we can be turned down an aisle to tears of love, kisses and promises, snuggled on the sofa, wedged between mottled pillows and ash ridden fingers. The next turn, in the next moment, I cannot help but be.. Suspicious. Extremely. The words spill out of my eyes and over my mouth until it is the straightest line. I, am a line of questioning. And he does. Not. like. It.

Here is what I would say: (if every in-road to this conversation didn’t end with him storming off at the sound of: my-voice-making-sounds-that-are-not-praises, nor thanks, nor coos that ring in line with my role)

The thing is… it’s not that I’m jealous. It’s that I cannot handle the thought of being the innocent. The dumb one who looks the other way so far, that nothing needs to be hidden. Out of irony, it’s the obvious cliches that bother me most, as if my worst fear might be that we could both be stupid enough. He- stupid enough to think I would never notice or suspect the too obvious. Me- stupid enough to trust that someone could want me, love me, without secrets.

I’m living with a man I love, but there are too many suspicious moving parts. I sometimes feel consumed by the full time job of being with someone who has to whisper his work details, whose friends are a cloud of smoke, have never spoken respectfully about any women in my presence… whose guy world has become my own. I’ve seen the different stories he tells, the handfuls of multicolored truths he has at the ready…

So, which one am I? What’s more, which one am I swallowing.