What Do You Want?

“What do you want?”

“Whatever you are willing to give. I will take. And I will make do.”

~ Even if it just with the scraps of you

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gave me the ability to speak, only to render me speechless so often.

In the way she gave me a voice, and a dread of using it.

The way she gave me all the words in the world, and feelings none of them could describe.

And life is funny that way.

In the way she sends me desire for those who will never desire me.

In the way she gives me a heart made of grasping palms and nothing to hold.

The way she shows me religion then baptizes me in doubt when I most need to trust in something other than myself. And in this way she keeps me close. For what do I have if I do not have her?

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gives me the world to write about and yet sends me poems about you over and over and over.

In the way she compels me to write about forever and eternity and the vastness of space, while hypnotizing me with my mortality on a heart string swaying in front of me always.

The way she asks me to write about love and gives me only tastes of it. Watches amused as I pen page after page trying to recreate a feast on paper. Trying to quench the ravenous appetite she left me with, only to witness me fail time and time again. Smiling as I go to bed starving.

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gives me the will and yet no way.

The way she teaches me how to want, but not how to have, not how to keep.

The way she makes it my deepest desire to be known completely and yet my greatest fear.

The way she gifts me already broken promises.

And life is funny that way

By which I mean

Life is a cruel mistress

And every piece of my shattered heart

Is hers

He sets his spoon down and I hear the crinkle of the newspaper being folded. I glance at the clock then at him.

"A little early to be..." the words die on my lips.

He's looking at me. His soft blue eyes suddenly sharp. He never looks at me these days. Not really. I think he is afraid of what he might see. Or more of what he won't.

He clears his throat.

"I'll be away for business over the weekend. I'm leaving Friday morning."

"Oh." Is all I manage, staring back, fighting the butterflies that leap to life in my stomach.

He breaks eye contact and I tell myself it is because those few seconds were all he could bear and not because the joy I failed to keep from my eyes stung him. He rings the bell for the maid signalling he's done with breakfast and ready for his things, placing it gently back on the table before he speaks.

He swallows staring at the wood of the tabletop, "You may wish to invite company to-- pass the time. If you do I shall ask Charles to stay on call while I am gone. Should you need to take the carriage anywhere."

"Oh," I find myself repeating. "Oh, no. No, I couldn't. Truly. I'll be just fine on my own."

"You need not worry about appearances." He offers quietly. "I can handle any untoward rumours."

My husband has never been a loud man. But he is far from quiet either. Always firm and focused and articulate. His actions. His gaze. His words.

This person standing before me is foreign. Is blunted around the edges. If not defeated, losing a battle that seems to have been raging longer than I've known. One that has been wearing him down slowly but surely.

You need not worry about appearances.

And in only these words he is telling me he knows. He is telling me he will not interfere. He is giving me some warped form of permission.

I can handle any untoward rumours

And in only these words he is telling me he knows. That others do too. That we have been the subject of the kind of gossip that buries itself under skin and drives reputations to rot. He is saying he will save face for us both. That when the speculation comes for us, he will defend me. I try and tell myself that of course he would. For such talk would be the end of him too. But I know I am fooling myself. He could abandon me. Let the stories devour me until my gowns were ragged and I was destitute.

This has nothing to do with shielding his pride from being wounded by others finding out what his wife was, or did when his eyes were turned. No. If this had to do with pride, well I would have dealt with the fallout a long time ago. He does not have to do this and yet he is. For me. And I find myself wishing in this moment his intentions were more selfish so I did not have to feel so terrible.

I try to ignore the fact that the way he says these words implies he has handled worse. That the rumours might be easier to deal with than the betrayal. The heartbreak.

I try to ignore the fact that he might be heartbroken. That I may have broken his heart.

"I-- I think I would rather be without the staff over the weekend. Have some time to myself." Without prying eyes. He may be able to handle rumours but I don't know if she can. I choose my words carefully. "And I do not believe I'll be needing to leave. I think I'll spend the time resting." In bed. With company. With her.  I choose my words carefully but it does not matter. He knows. Of course, he knows.

He nods just as Lucy enters the room. I take the coat from her. "I've got it, thank you. You are dismissed."

She bows her head politely and retreats into the hallway. He tucks the last of the papers into his briefcase and snaps the closures shut.

"Here," I say as he turns, "let me."

He isn't looking at me again. He's looking at the jacket in my hands. The hollows under his eyes seem darker than they did even a week ago. I realize I don't know if he's been sleeping. I haven't asked. And he's hasn't said anything. We haven't shared a bed in months. When was the last time we spoke? Really spoke? Had a conversation that wasn't idle chatter to pass mealtime?

He nods allowing me to help him into the sleeves but steps away as soon as I'm done, managing the buttons himself.

"Whatever will I do with myself while you're away?" I tease, but it comes out dry. A futile attempt to lighten his solemn mood.

I'm sure you'll find something to keep yourself entertained, Emma. I expect him to respond back, much too seriously, just as he used to. As he used to when we smiled together. When we made conversation. When he looked at me and was not afraid.

But instead, he pauses with his back turned to me hands clutching his briefcase on the table.

"Be happy, Emmaline." He says softly but clearly. "While I am away, be happy."

My heart shudders as I exhale his name. But he is already striding out of the dining room down the hall. The front door opens and shuts within a moment, but the echoes linger long after, haunting the halls and hollow rooms of this house.

You taught me a softer way to love. Which is to say I have always loved like wildfire. Always loved vicious. All or nothing. Overwhelming and unbearable and so hard it hurts. Always loved a war of desire leaving my heart a ravaged battlefield with thick scar tissue in the shape of words they never said. But we burnt out. Which is to say I fell out of love with you in the summer sun in the middle of a movie theatre parking lot and it had nothing to do with you. And I did not realize this for years in the aftermath of this heartbreak. It had nothing to do with you. For you had always been you. It was me. For it is always me and the moment I am disillusioned regarding exactly what I am deserving of. Regarding exactly what you are offering and what I had misinterpreted your open palms and open smile for. Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. Which is an oversimplification of the process of withdrawal but I did. I fell out of love with you. And I am better for it.

Which is to say when I did, touching you ached less. Your name in my mouth didn't sting so much. Every time you talked about someone else it never cut deep enough to leave a mark. And then it stopped cutting at all. And then I started being happy for you. And now, all this time later, I suppose when I call you my friend I mean it. Which is to say I never text you first anymore and it isn't even on purpose. Which is to say we talk when we have time, usually when you are home from school for the break, and I laugh like renewal, but never with enough joy that it threatens to rip my seams. Which is to say I have not fallen in love with anyone since you but I'm okay with that. I know I could. Which is to say I do not rearrange plans when you call and I do not particularly care about seeming intelligent to you anymore. Or beautiful. Or talented. Or worthy. I don't worry about keeping you coming back. Because I know you'll return for us eventually. And we'll pick up where we left off. Like we cannot help but meet again where you last left the person I used to be.

But every time we are together for more than a handful of moments I am in love with you again. And my heartbeat syncs with yours. And when you look at me I want you to keep looking. And when you touch me I want you to keep touching. But you never do. And I am practiced in this. So this time you walk me all the way home and it doesn't even get my hopes up. This time you sing to me at my doorstep and I do not flinch. Remind myself it is not your fault your kindness works like this. That this is just who you are. Because I will walk inside and peek out the glass for you to look back and you won't. And I will remember in the reflection that I am no one special to you. And I will fall out of love again, just like I have done a dozen times before with you. And I will go upstairs and take a shower humming the lyrics to the song you last played me and when I step out of the stream of water, my desire will be washed down the drain. And I will cease loving you until next time.

You taught me a softer way to love. Because I think you taught me there are some people we will never fall all the way out of love with. And that can be okay sometimes. As long as you are not destroying yourself with longing. Some things cannot be helped.

~ #3 : reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him

When I was young, love was always big, but never so big someone out there couldn't fit it in a poem. I am less young now.

Once, I read about how grief is too big to write. That you have to paint it in negative space. You have to tell it in molecules. You cannot write the galaxy, you have to write the smallest star. You cannot write the torn fabric, you have to write the fraying thread. You have to write the empty hangers, you have to write all the extra hot water the shower now has, you have to write the tongue cutting itself on past tense verbs. You write the empty shoes, you write the unbaked banana bread, the red grapes only she ate growing mold in the fridge, you write the bed into an ocean unbearably vast.

I am less young now, and I realize you must write love like grief. And is this not the truest metaphor I have ever touched. For in this way, all the greatest loves do not have poems. For how does one write the peace into pieces small enough to be held by the craters in every o and b and p. I am less young now, and in this way I do not want a love worthy of poems. I would like one that could never be penned. That could never fit in the span of a few stanzas. I want us forever unwritten.

"I miss you."

"It is easy to miss someone when you are lonely and the night is quiet. You crave company and companionship. You do not crave me."

I want to say

"Missing you is never easy."

I want to say

"I crave you always. It is you, always."

But instead I say,

"Yes, I miss you then. But I miss you most when I am surrounded by people and happiness. Because it is then my heart aches deepest with the knowledge that there is no one else I would rather share this joy with."

~ even in my dreams you do not respond (rewriting the conversation we never had)