Tears

 Tears

        

                    

    

                    I saw a doctor this week

                    I didn't have to say a word

                    I just pointed to my face and tears came

                    She nodded. She understood.

                    I'm not easily surviving my life these days

                    She understood

                    I pointed to my face and tears came

                    And I felt ashamed

                    To crumble

                        To fade

                            To fold into a person in a cold, white room

                                That can no longer contain or restrain or maintain

                    Tears now replace

                        My dignity

                            My grace

                                My place

                                    Not just in his life

                                        But in the space that is mine

                    I pointed to my face and tears came

                    As if they are poised waiting

                    They are ...

                    An entity beyond my strength

                    A being possessing me

                    A thing bold and blinding

                    Behind my eyes and smile they hide

                    Waiting each and every day

                    For a thing to be said or rage to rise

                        To trigger their release

                            To bend the broken parts of me

                                Into messages expressed quietly

                                    As streams down my face

                    People want me to rise and push the pain away

                    Mostly, I am doing that

                    But right behind my smile and my eyes

                        are the feelings trapped inside

                            that make me cry ...

                    

                    

Caged

 

Caged

                    I watch my mother these days

                    I watch my father aging

                    Both, find it difficult to walk

                    I think to myself, "Do whatever it takes to always walk."

                    I'm sure they never saw a day

                    Their legs would betray them

                    Still ...

                    I will find a way

                    Even when I am their age

                    To move from this place to that

                    Because ...

                    Otherwise, you are trapped

                    I suppose I feel this intensely now

                    Because I have become as a creature in a cage

                    A captive in a life that has crippled me

                    I have become

                    Someone he built

                    Into something he so suddenly

                        and so easily

                        discarded and threw away

                        a partner

                        a companion

                            that no longer

                            served the purpose 

                            of helping him from this day to that

                        He chose another

                        And left me

                        Inside this cage

                        Circling a maze with a broken heart

                            and mangled legs

                        I wake each day

                        Alone in a space

                        He once occupied along with me

                        Someone said to me, "I imagine the nights are the worse for you."

                        It is not the nights

                        It is the mornings that take my breath away

                        It is the mornings when I am reminded

                        That he sleeps with her now

                            that he touches her now

                                that he chose her now

                                    that she and he have caged me into a space

                                        where my mind and my legs

                                            feel trapped in outrage

                                                with nowhere to go and nowhere to stay ...

                        

                        

                        

                        

                        

                        

                    

This Mess

 

This Mess

                    He told one of my children

                    "She created this mess."

                    He is the one that cheated on me for many years

                    Not with some random person

                    But with my best friend

                    He is the one that stayed for forty years

                    Was in it with me up until the very end

                    And

                    The end was not a day he decided

                    Not a day he planned

                    It was the day I discovered

                    He was not just pretending to be my man

                    Not just carrying on like we were alright

                    But continuing to make plans for our future

                    Up until that day

                    Up until the day it ended

                    The day ...

                    I learned my love for him had been betrayed

                    Where in all the years

                    In all the calls between him and her

                    In all the secret dinners and meetings

                    In all the touches and words he gave to her

                    Was there room for me

                    Was there ways for me

                    Was there blame for me

                    To create this mess?

                    He trapped himself

                    Inside a web of so many lies

                    He's now trapped with her

                    Attempting to disguise

                    His new life was somehow a mess I made

                    I would never have made this mess of my life

                    I did not make this mess

                    I am caught in a mess

                    They made

                    He made

                    Of so many lives

                    

                    

                    

Vengeance

 

Vengeance

                    I wake most days crying

                    I'm not sure if tears are provoked by dreams

                    Or come immediately when I open my eyes

                    I don't want to believe

                    That even while I sleep

                    My mind finds no place to hide

                        from the sorrow that is burrowing into my life

                    My sadness is two fold

                    I have fear for the rest of my life

                    But

                    It is the disbelief

                    That he so suddenly no longer cared for me

                    That causes me the most strife

                    It is, that one day everything seemed fine

                    And then the very next day

                    He left me and all that was ours behind

                        To her bed

                        To her, as his new life

                    It is the rejection, the abandonment

                    Of, not just me, but our children

                    Our life, our marriage and home

                    Our plans, our pets, our past, our memories

                    Everything that seemed just fine

                    Until I found out

                    One Wednesday

                    He'd been living a secret life

                    Under my blind eyes

                    Behind my trusting back

                    He'd been secretly and blatantly

                    Risking all that we had

                    Not for days or months, even

                    But for years

                    With a best friend of mine

                    I don't know how to reconcile any of that

                    I try so hard to move on from sadness to anger

                    Anger will help me survive

                    I know this

                    And, the anger exists, absolutely

                    It is just not stronger yet

                        than the sorrow

                    I don't know when it will come

                    But ... I need it to come

                    I need to wake no more with tears

                    I need to wake tomorrow

                        with the strength that anger creates

                        to get me out of this

                        not feeling so broken and rejected

                        not feeling so lacking

                        not feeling so confused and abandoned

                    I need to wake tomorrow

                    Or soon

                    Free of this sadness I have for me

                    And I have for my children

                    I need to wake on the day

                    When my sorrow is replaced

                        with vengeance