real

is it raining, he asked
the mist sticking to my eyelids making me blink
yes, i answered

but
it was like he had said he loved me and i loved him back
but
other things had been said
i was confused
he wanted me
but
he didn't want me
was maybe a little afraid of me

i have this fairy tale i tell myself about him
he was cursed
he cannot express his love for me
if he says anything
if he does anything
directly

i'm never sure what
some days
the curse causes me to stop loving him
some days
the curse causes him to stop loving me
other days death ensues
but there are some days
when i think that it isn't really a curse
what it really is is a promise he made
and not to me

on those days
i'm tempted to listen to my mother
but the fact that she thinks he's using me
is almost a guarantee that that cannot be the case

but
i second guess myself
maybe this is some new creative way to torture myself

and i feel like he thinks
whether this is true or not i cannot say
that i am holding out on him somehow
as though
it were perfectly normal to go places one didn't want to go
and do things one didn't want to do
without
not a contract
we're not talking a contract
without
one word

who does that


no
that's not holding out
whether he thinks it is or not
it might be patience
it might be stupidity
but it is not holding out


and
if he were truly bad for me
would i have quit smoking and smoking
changed my lifestyle and diet
surely
being healthier
looking younger
these are good things
things i would never have done

ah but, you say
you didn't do those things for him
you did them for the baby
and what becomes of you when you can't have one
because
even if he stops pushing you away
it doesn't mean
you're not a barren wasteland

and truly
i don't know
maybe
it is too late already
but i can only do what i can do
and
when i started this
i thought
if it doesn't work out i can always kill myself
and i had been killing myself for years by inches
but
now i want to live
so
if things don't work out
i imagine i'll muddle through somehow
if i'm supposed to have a kid
if that's the mission of my soul
then i will
i believe that

would his life be better
if i was not there
am i a dangerous addiction
am i bad for him

that i have no way to know

i could certainly make the argument
that
though i was good for him at first
perhaps now
i risk damaging things
important things

it is not my place to make that decision
and i do not choose to superimpose some bourgeois standard
over what my heart call out for
because that is just a bunch of crap


i am going to love him forever
and i'm not going to let him make me stop
and that has determined my actions
if doing something
or not doing something
could have the possible outcome
that i would stop loving him
then i will not let myself do it

i meant to write something more poetic
i'm not angry
or sad
or disappointed
and this might sound like something like that

but i was reading something
and it was all from inside the writer's head
and it occurred to me
that
that is what i naturally write
but i think i shouldn't
so then i try to write something else
and maybe
what you really want to know
is the stuff that isn't prettied up
and so i am letting you read this
even though
maybe that isn't a good idea
i don't know

sometimes