I oftentimes wonder what happened to that sweet, understanding man that I knew when we first got together.
The one with the softness in his eyes;
The understanding in his heart and the love in his voice.
I often think about the man who jumped on the guest room bed with me;
The one whose eyes were sparkling with adoration as we acted like kids-
Collapsing into laughter on the bed and living in the moment as we both tried to catch our breath.
I’ve replayed everything back in my head a million times over and-
I can’t pinpoint where everything went wrong.
I can’t remember when we switched from late night hour long conversations and comfortability-
To screaming wretched things in each other’s faces and going to bed with this horrible gut-wrenching feeling that things would never get better.
I’ve spent many nights in my car alone crying;
Wondering what I did to deserve the hateful things you’d screamed in my face or why I just couldn’t seem to pack my things and get the hell out-
Because I loved you too much.
I’ve said my fair share of disgusting things-
Shoving the knife in and digging and twisting to do the kind of unfathomable damage you’ve done to me,
But it only ever made me lose sleep at night.
Even if you deserved to hear those things at the time-
And never had any trouble sleeping after spewing them in my face.
I miss the man who let me cry on his shoulder on nights my demons haunted me too much;
The man who not only would ask me if I was okay but would listen to me when I was honest about what was going on in my head.
Now everything I tell you you use as ammunition against me;
Purposely digging into every aspect of my life to find something to get offended and upset about so you can hurt me with it.
I miss the man I fell in love with.
Nothing has hurt more than watching you become someone entirely different-
To the extent of gripping me up twice in the last year and then pinning me down to the bed so hard you bruised me;
and screaming in my face because you couldn’t take the fight anymore.
My heart aches for the man who promised to protect me;
The one I didn’t need protecting from.
I know he’s still in you somewhere;
And I have hope that someday you’ll stop numbing yourself with the alcohol and give yourself the benefit of the doubt enough to heal.
I just can’t stick around and wait for that to happen but-
No matter how hard it is,
No matter how much my heart aches for you
No matter how much I want to give in because I need your hugs so bad
No matter how many times I find your deodorant in the Walmart isle and smell it because it feels like one of your hugs;
I won’t come back.
It’ll be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do;
And I’ll have really hard choices to make and I’ll spend many days in bed crying but-
Eventually I will be okay.
And I need to believe that.
