Incinerating the Past

 Incinerating the past
In a wastebasket sized
Bronze urn...
Two Final Divorce Decrees...
Dozens of  love letters...
All from the past...
Three failed marriages...
I can't live there anymore...
I don't live there anymore...
I release their energy
Back into the universe...
Any love I was feeling
Other than what I gave
Was an illusion...
None of them really knew me...
They just knew
Whatever illusion they had created
In their own minds...
From the positive, idealized me
That they initially created
To the imperfect human,
The flawed man
That they grew to treat
Like the enemy...
I am a flawed man,
But I didn't deserve
To be treated
The way I had been treated...
Abandoned in varying ways,
Sexually, emotionally, spiritually...
None of them
Gave their trust easily...
All three had 
Vaguely similar life experiences...
Products of
Neglect and abuse...
I was a useful tool
For all three of them...
I filled a role
That they perceived 
That they needed...
At that moment in time...
I got things done...
Supported them...
Maybe not always
Perfectly
In the fashion they wanted,
But I worked hard
To support them...
Helped to feed
What were once my families...
It was never enough...
I became the thing
That represented
All of their problems,
Their insecurity,
Their self-hate...
Even their own families
And family histories
That created them,
Somehow
I had to bear the brunt
Of their anger
And their own guilt
Projected onto me...
They all spin horror stories
About me...
All have spoken lies
About who I am,
What I did,
And who's to blame...
"I'm brain-damaged"
"I'm the cause of the miscarriages"
"I cheated"
I'm done defending myself,
Because I did make mistakes...
Just not the mistakes
They tell everyone I made...
One problem I own,
the biggest mistake:
I blundered full force into
Love (?)
Unthinking every time...
Not heeding
Any warning signs...
Just an internet meme:
Therapist: "Did you notice all the red flags?"
Me: "I thought it was a circus."
Yeah, that was me.
Every blaze
Eventually
Dies down to embers...
Ash goes from black
To white...
Orange glow
Running along the edges
Of blackened paper
Like tiny luminous insects...
The light breeze giving just enough air
To keep digesting the organic material...
White smoke over green, orange,
And blue flames...
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