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