Faulty Accounting
I’m a glutton for punishment, and you agree, especially if I’m looking for logic from you, for me.
There was never any logic in the equation of us. You need the values for both parts in order to find the sum, the answer to the problem of two people trying to become one. Only one of us was real, a person willing to share and grow, face the ups and downs that life demands, sticking it out through the painful and surreal.
It’s not a pair if only one half participates, and there is never a solution when you only know a part of the whole. I should have known. I should have known.
Instead, I altered my perception, made a thousand exceptions, bent and built and buried myself right out of existence. I tried to see only the human in you, the one beyond the biting behaviors and the vengeful exes, focusing on only the good times, the laughs and sweet caresses. Forgive, forget, I say and say. Be as graceful as others have been— Buddha, Gandhi, two black labradors.
But it is not easy to love you, with your forked tongue and elaborate illusions. Especially not as you lash out, demean — cut through skin and teeth, enraged that someone made you feel something. And, later expecting that everything be normal once again, once you've finished denigrating your next of kin, or the woman who loves you beyond comprehension.
You are still just a scared boy, wondering if they will ever come back for you. But it was you who jumped from the car, wasn’t it? You were the one who left. And then expected them to come and get you once you did.
I’ve come back for you, over and over and over again.
There is no real road forward for me. I only want this to end. I took very good care of you, tended to your every need, helped you to find a way to breathe. But, I have fallen on far too many swords, swallowed too many of your words.
In the end, your cruelty remains, your pride in refrains.
Maybe you’re not the man I thought. As much as I profess and shout, give examples of your generosity, your gentle nature, the magical, rare moments when you let your inner self out.
You were the man of my dreams, I thought.
I guess I only saw what you could be. A faulty mechanism in me.
No matter what, there is no need to be mean to me. To say cruel things to me. To accuse me of things I am neither inclined nor moved to do.
My only crime has been loving you, despite your horrendous words and your abhorrent behavior. And, it’s all been forgiven.
From me, for you. It’s all brand new.
Once you decide to be a real person again, that is. Unfortunately, you must treat me like I’m one too. It’s a package deal.
