The After, the Now

I can't pretend to have my thoughts in order, so I'll just say them to you as they occur to me. 'zat fair enough? Great.

Or maybe you had no idea and I'm being some fart-sniffing prick right now. I can never really tell who YOU are, your relationship to ME, or what it is we feel we owe each other. I'll always tell you the truth. Stick that in your protected pocket. 

So. Why the months long hiatus?

The easy truth is the pandemic. Even if you haven't noticed my absence, I'm sure you've noticed everyone walking around in masks of varying cuteness. 

"I LIKE LONG ROMANTIC WALKS TO THE FRIDGE" one mask declares. How clever. A dumb coffee cup they don't have to hold, freeing their hands up to make gestures to Monday and the need mimosas. 

I think my last meaningful entry was in...January?

Roof caved in in March. Two months unaccounted for, Brit. 

The less easy truth is that I ran myself into a digital corner here. Surprise, surprise, I'm not a web designer! I built this site much in the way I taught myself how to play guitar. I can traipse through it now, but there are so many bad habits I've picked up along the way that I'm finding myself no longer able to avoid all those dragon tattoos I gave myself for practice. Long paragraph short - I ran out of space for my poetry. 

And what am I gonna do? Run away from work and home to detangle this knotheaded toddler?

It's worth noting that autocorrect wants me to use 'untangle', but that's not what I mean. Untangling is singular. Detangling is a week's long labor of love. God, why are you still here? Why am I? Hah. Oh, right. The hard truth.

The hard truth is that I'm afraid of you. You see me naked. A lot. And while I've never housed any particular shame about that, I'm finding it difficult looking you in the eye these days. This November marks two years since husband left. I'm older. More tired. More sore. More cynical. I can't keep pretending like I'm getting something out of this, you know? This isn't love. We both know that.

I don't know, man. I'll listen while you talk for a while.