and if you feel the same
* edited 04/08/03 6:59:18 AM

in the midst of trying to remember the way love feels
he calls to hurl insults
get it all out, i say plainly through the pain of biting my lip
a bitch and a range of other obscene gestures that surely don't warrant any more time or thought or any of my space
the way that he shouts into the receiver makes me cringe
reminds me what it feels like to wear fear in the face of the proffers of constancy and what stood for too long as a condition of love
a hoop i thought i was meant to keep jumping through
i remain calm
resolute
i don’t want to be part of this anymore.
and i feel tired at the string of apologies that follow
because it’s far too late for those
it’s far too late for forgiveness or forgetting
saying you love someone or something doesn’t necessarily make it so.
and anyway i don’t have the time or the energy to deal with this constant barrage of insults and insecurity. and the after-words filled with moments of sorrow and manipulation until i’ve forgotten what i’ve started out believing in. i’d say this is the end. but the end happened a long long time ago.
when he won’t stop, i hang up the line without regret and don’t pick it up when he tries back again several times.
i throw the dinner i’ve been cooking into the garbage.
all of it staring at me accusingly from the bottom of the bin.
stand out in the snow in my pajamas and wait for something else to happen. when it doesn’t i wander aimlessly around the house feeling like my whole being has been shattered into a trillion particles that might not ever be rendered back into their original form.
i blindly dial the phone.
my mother.
almost feel relief when she doesn’t answer the phone.
i’m almost certain there’s nothing i would have been able to say, anyway.
maybe i shouldn’t feel useless and scared – tired and sick.
and i’m disappointed in myself
in the way that he can still make me feel inadequate and stupid and all the other things that keep me spinning in endless useless circles.
the resolution seems so simple: i need to stop believing (in) the wrong people.

* emphasis added later
* reclaimation: ongoing