September 22, 2004

Some wounds seem so superficial yet they cut so deep and sting with an intensity I thought I would never fave to feel again.

Your cell phone rings, a ring tone I haven't heard before, and I wonder who is calling. You excuse yourself outside and I tell myself, "The reception's better outside, he always goes outside to answer it, no matter who's calling" to which I reply, "But who's calling?"

And the hurt I had pushed to the deepest recesses of my mind, of my heart, comes creeping forward, slowly at first, and then quickly, as if running to the foreground of my emotions. "IT'S HER!" they scream. "She's calling him! He's standing on the deck of YOUR house talking to HER while YOU sit in YOUR living room, only a few feet away!"

The horror! The anger! The pain! The sadness! The trust! The feeling that maybe I've been a fool all along and this reconciliation I am experiencing is just some dumb game you're playing with me. That old saying comes to mind, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

And it stings when you come inside and I ask who you were talking too. You're an awful liar, so you don't even try to deny it, yet you don't want to admit it either. "No one," you say but your guilty face gives you away and I know that "no one" means "someone" and I want to scream and yell and cry all at the same time. I suddenly feel like everything I've been trying to salvage this past year is slowly starting to slip out of my hands again.

And I get cold to you and try to sulk off upstairs to bed even though it's almost 8 and we're supposed to watch the Big Brother 5 finale together. You tell me not to go and I stop, because in my deepest heart of hearts I don't want to leave you, I don't want to be hurt. And we exchange words as the tears start falling from my eyes, my Cosmo magazing hanging limply in my hand as I stand across the room from you. I finally sit back down on the couch and you console me, quietly, as I lay my head on the pillow and you lean over me, holding me.

These wounds run deep, yes indeed, but my love for you runs deeper still.

that was then - this is now