Monday, January 27, 2025

Names and Words

 




Names and Words


                    It took me months to say the D word

                    I also can no longer utter their names

                    When you give something or someone a name

                        they say

                        it makes them real, makes it real, makes 

                        the person or thing behave in such a way

                        inside your mind

                            as extraordinary


                    The D word was a word I'd only ever heard

                        attached to others but I never imagined it would be a part of me

                    Their names were never part of the ordinary space in my brain

                        where I kept complacency

                    That is what I believed

                    Now I know

                    That is where the word and the two of them were living

                        unbeknownst to me

                     As, it was there

                    That betrayal was born and the word given its name

                        and the two did to me

                        a thing permitted easily by complacency

                        I am much to blame


                    I called it trust and that word Love

                    I had once strongly for the both of them

                    Complacency is smug 

                    A belief that your realization is the only realization

                    I relaxed in that place for too long

                    believing neither of them, nor the D word, would ever hurt me

                        I was very wrong


                    His name to me was not just my other half

                    It was attached to a man with dignity

                        a man with respect for me

                        a man I grew with for forty years and created children with

                        a man I believed would always be with me

                    I took his name away from him

                        the day he left me

                        for my best friend

                    I took her name away from her

                        the day she corruptly took my man

                    Neither deserve from me one more day of believing

                        they were ever extraordinary

                        they were never what was my belief of reality

                            they were and are, as disgustingly ordinary as the D word is

                                now

                                    to me


                    I've thought seriously about changing my last name

                    Even though it has been a part of me for forty years

                    It would be like severing an arm, both arms and even both legs

                    Because it is also my four children's name

                        I could never want any severing from them

                    So, I will keep it

                    Swallow my pride and dignity

                    Carry the feeling with me as long as the ill feeling exists

                        that the name he gave me

                        now only makes me sick


                    I say it took me months to utter the D word

                    That's not really true

                    I've said it a few times less uncomfortably

                    But

                    I still seldom can force myself to speak it

                    As it is not a choice I made

                    But a thing that was done to me

                    It hurts to be a victim of cruelty

                        I can't give it its name yet

                        Until I replace the cruelty

                            with surviving completely

                            with a life beyond misery

                            with a love that will remind me of my worth

                                again

                        Then I might say it, even proudly and openly

                        The word that distinctly describes that ...

                            He is no longer mine, and I am no longer his


                                            

                    



                    

                    

No comments:

Post a Comment

Bars and Walls

                 Bars and Walls                              No one can know                                        how it feels when they c...