I’m lonely.

For several weeks I have been breathing in loneliness and exhaling it too. It soaks me in its wet, heavy haziness.

Every time I look anywhere, there is a couple, together, sharing a joke, a small gentle familiar kiss, a rest of a familiar hand on the small of a back, the lack of space between them

and all I can do was sigh.

When will my turn come?

It’s no longer about dating men. It’s about having one of my own.

 

 

I thought I had it with Mr. Singapore

only Mr. Singapore is well….

in Singapore for another four months.

 

I thought I had it with Mr. Bike,

only honestly, Mr. Bike is why I feel so lonely.

 

Mr. Bike is kind and warm and in the beginning so attentive. And then Mr. Bike stopped being attentive.

 

He’s been so busy he says

He’s opening a new store, he says

Reasonable excuses

But they

are

excuses

And when I voice my needs up against those excuses, I feel crazy.

 

And this is where I feel embarrassed. Instead of walking away, instead of saying “I am worthy of more than this” I picked up the attentive flame and ran after him.

 

“I’m here” I said, through texts and emails and phone calls.

 

I am not sure if I did it too much, not enough or if he just didn’t speak the language but

I am not getting very much from him. Every time he throws me a damn crumb, I find myself hoping again.

 

I am having trouble letting this “relationship” go.

Laughter.

If this is a relationship then my standards have truly gone to an embarrassinglu low level.

 

Shame.

I think they have.

 

I keep him because he is the first man I can imagine keeping. I can see introducing him to my kids, taking him with us to the ranch, hanging out with my friends. Because he is a most excellent kisser and because it’s easy to be with him, when I’m with him.

I keep him because I don’t want to be alone, even though I am.

And maybe that is his purpose, to show me the possibilities. To see that I can be in ‘like’ again, that I am capable of a relationship, that I want a relationship.

 

And I am afraid

that he is

all I can get.

 

The fear (and honestly the lack of faith) keep me entwined in him when it is better for me to let him go.

 

I am faced with this fact:

Being a widow, being someone who has profoundly lost

has left

me

shaken.

 

Death ripped me open

I am a “well dressed nerve” as my therapist says

and so I don’t trust my judgment.

 

But staying feels awful.

Leaving is full of uncertainty and fear.

Just like death.

 

I will end this

or at least let it

fizzle out

 

I am tired of feeling wild crazy lonely

I have already been through so much.

 

But I think I may stay

for a little while longer

until another man

comes around.

 

I can leap to him

like a monkey from one tree to another

across the abyss

of loneliness.

 

The shame of not

being in

something

is

for me

better than being out of something.

 

I just can’t take the loneliness anymore.

 

So I will take what he offers

until I can find better.

I will stay wild crazy lonely because

when he does give to me

it is exactly what I need.