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.