What hurt the most shouldn’t have; without access those first few weeks, it wouldn’t have hurt at all. Even after all this time, these months, with shock after shock absorbed, it’s hard to summon the incredulity I felt as I read your words. How completely you sold me out even to people of almost no consequence. (TG? Really?) How quickly you (literally) erased the words of love shared between us, how soon you embraced the verve of partying normalcy (“Halloween party–South Austin, I know it’s late notice, yada, yada”), how eagerly you fell into another’s arms–and he into your legs–before even three weekends had past. You made me feel like saccharine, a bad Alanis Morrisette song (a slap in the face how quickly I was ugh), and for that I can never forgive you.
See? It’s been long enough that I can joke. Truth be told, I joked from day one. (“I love you like punk rock, I miss you like my next breath not taken, I’m sorry like Shania Twain,” remember?) You wanted to smile at the time; in fact, I think you did.
But what where you hiding? What unnamed errands so compelled you to leave that Saturday night? Don’t get me wrong, there were hundreds of moments where I could have eaten my words, swallowed my pride and opened my eyes. And maybe yours. Instead I chose to do nothing. Or, worse yet, to shut them closed.
What hurt the most? It was the juxtaposition of what you had written with what you were writing. It was the sad cynicism of your anti-marriage ranting set against the mad, hopeful optimism of our one-time union. And I couldn’t tell which one was real. Or both. Or neither. This is when I developed the theory of you as a character in a book, play or movie. (You do not exist.)
You are a haphazard amalgam, a poorly organized anthology of traits that I needed–beauty, intelligence, humor (though I rarely remember you laughing, especially sober)–and traits I ignored–addiction, promiscuity, lies–but were never in any real sense a person.
Bad lyrics sometimes feel good
What hurt the most shouldn’t have; without access those first few weeks, it wouldn’t have hurt at all. Even after all this time, these months, with shock after shock absorbed, it’s hard to summon the incredulity I felt as I read your words. How completely you sold me out even to people of almost no consequence. (TG? Really?) How quickly you (literally) erased the words of love shared between us, how soon you embraced the verve of partying normalcy (“Halloween party–South Austin, I know it’s late notice, yada, yada”), how eagerly you fell into another’s arms–and he into your legs–before even three weekends had past. You made me feel like saccharine, a bad Alanis Morrisette song (a slap in the face how quickly I was ugh), and for that I can never forgive you.
See? It’s been long enough that I can joke. Truth be told, I joked from day one. (“I love you like punk rock, I miss you like my next breath not taken, I’m sorry like Shania Twain,” remember?) You wanted to smile at the time; in fact, I think you did.
But what where you hiding? What unnamed errands so compelled you to leave that Saturday night? Don’t get me wrong, there were hundreds of moments where I could have eaten my words, swallowed my pride and opened my eyes. And maybe yours. Instead I chose to do nothing. Or, worse yet, to shut them closed.
What hurt the most? It was the juxtaposition of what you had written with what you were writing. It was the sad cynicism of your anti-marriage ranting set against the mad, hopeful optimism of our one-time union. And I couldn’t tell which one was real. Or both. Or neither. This is when I developed the theory of you as a character in a book, play or movie. (You do not exist.)
You are a haphazard amalgam, a poorly organized anthology of traits that I needed–beauty, intelligence, humor (though I rarely remember you laughing, especially sober)–and traits I ignored–addiction, promiscuity, lies–but were never in any real sense a person.