Burning

 I hope she feels the pain I felt, and more...

I hope she laments how she treated me every other day...

I hope her self-esteem has crashed like the trainwreck it is...

I hope she cries herself to sleep every night that she's not fucking someone new...

I hope she cries herself to sleep when she is fucking someone new...

I hope she thinks about my flesh every time she tastes the flesh of another...

I hope it's caustic and bitter...

I hope she swallows every bit, and gags every time...

I hope her nightmares are exquisite and disturbing...

I hope she relives this relationship's end with every one...

I hope that I haunt her dreams, and deprive her of sleep...

I hope she knows how low my opinion of her has fallen...

And I hope she cares just enough so that denial can't protect her...

I hope she looks in the mirror, and hates what she sees...

Not a stretch, this one, as she never could stand being in her own skin...

I hope things have gotten worse...

I hope anything she used to love to do becomes a curse...

I hope her immediate family never changes...

Be the wonderful people you are, and continue to trample those eggshells...

Shatter every last piece of the childhood you tainted...

I hope she obsessively picks at her face until it bleeds...

I hope she can't bathe because the temptation to cut in that warm water is too much to deny...

May all of the scars be keloid, glowing through the fabric worn to conceal them...

And I want her to live a long, long life where all the tears burn like acid...

Where hopes and dreams are exchanged for a room in purgatory...

Where even her own spawn see her for who and what she is...

That they know all about the unscrupulous and unworthy things that she's done...

Every time she put her needs first, and their needs last...

I hope she falls in love every morning, and has her heart broken every night...

May every holiday pass with no one buying her a card...

May her thoughts of self-devaluation all come true...

May everyone she meets share the opinion she has of herself...

Validating her self hate...

Let there be no doubts...

I'm free...

First Day Off

 First day off after the divorce of wife number three...
Yes, I've been divorced three times...
What the fuck is wrong with me, right?
I admit I made some mistakes...
I wasn't a victim in any of the relationships...
And I didn't handle everything well...
External circumstance, mostly...
Acts of God, and such...
First one was basically killed by untreated menopause...
Second one, by three consecutive miscarriages, basically...
This last one? Killed by pathology...
Admittedly, on both sides...
But I would swear on a stack of bibles
That my worst behavior was in response to her behavior...
And I'm not even religious...
I was not prepared for that kind of tsunami...
I didn't do enough research into the pathology
To truly understand how to deal with it, up close and personal...
I didn't understand enough
To realize that the verbal attacks were not about me...
But they were directed at me...
I had to assume their mantle...
And sometimes I took it personally...
And I got angry...
Said things that weren't so nice...
But they were real...
They were based on objective reality...
Truth is often uncomfortable...
And, truthfully, she really fucked me up...
I'm not saying I'm totally innocent...
But she really fucked me up...
And kept doing it...
Intermittent reinforcement...
A rollercoaster of tears and blood and secretions of various sorts...
Heaven and Hell...
Yeah, the last one was more than moderately mind-bending...
The slalom of emotions...
Learning to understand it is much easier from a distance...
Understanding is easier to attain once the storm has passed,
And shelter has been fortified...
There was some minor turbulence...
A few bumps in the road, but I've always recovered...
Shit's got to get done no matter what state the heart is in...
Wandering the wasteland, or warming your feet by the fire...
Now, I live for me...
It's been too long...

Feeling Simple Happy

 A good friend asked how I was feeling...
Concerned because finality doesn't always feel the way we expect it to...
The divorce was adjudicated very recently...
Working all day...
No real time to sit down,
And get centered,
And allow my self to feel whatever emotions may come...
Of course,
I get home and immediately hit the Netflix on the projector
Just to have some low level distraction...
Now, after the show,
I'm giving myself time to feel...
The constant, ever present whirr of the cooling fan nowhere to be heard...
I close my eyes,
And the physical sensation is in my muscles...
Particularly upper body,
Chest and back...
I feel more muscular than I am
With this particular sensation...
Like Conan on the his throne...
King by his own hand...
So I must be feeling more empowered
Than victimized...
Other sensations...
Floaty?
Ever so slightly disconnected...
Watching your body on the operating table 
From above...
O.O.B.E.
There is no pain...
Earlier in the day,
You know how you 
Catch your breath
Right before a good cry?
On the verge of that,
But it never became fully fledged...
Right now...
It's almost like a mild body buzz...
(I guess a bit of weed
Helped out just a little...)
Kind of comfortable...
Not really sad or happy...
Just relieved...
It's not quite numbness...
It's not that far...
Of course, I still have feelings
For her,
But I can't allow myself to be near her...
Physically proximate...
I love her and I hate her,
Simultaneously...
And I know this is natural...
It will not be an obstacle in moving on...
I know I have a tendency to obsess over things...
Spinning the prayer wheel
Over and over again
With the compulsion of a monk...
The big wheel just keeps on turning...
Life goes on...
For her...
For me...
Just a day in the life...
A snapshot of human life...
Fitting of something like The Truman Show...
Cameras everywhere for both research
And entertainment...
There's that exhausted feeling like when you're just getting back home
From a long day trip to the beach,
Sun up to sunset, 
Sand and sunscreen still glistening in your hair...
Like coming down from an acid trip...
Feels like ending the night with drinks by a small bonfire...
I'm somewhat surprised that I feel alright...
I'm still hesitant to say that I feel good...
I mean like "good good"...
It's a sober feeling...
Serious...
Necessary...
This isn't exactly a
Popping champagne corks
Kind of situation...
Just sitting quietly
While two baby ferrets
Methodically
Explore the room
(In between naps...)
The critters tipped the scales of happy at least up to
"I frequently have a reason to laugh..."
What else do I really need,
But simple happy?

Like a Cancer

 It doesn't feel good,
But it doesn't exactly feel bad...
Like a surgeon,
Steady hand,
Making a precise incision...
Intentions
Focused on healing...
Some things necessarily
Need to be let go...
Sometimes
The cancer has to be cut out...
If it's caught soon enough...
If it hasn't metastasized 
And spread...
Emotions can be 
A kind of cancer...
Cancer cells,
They only think about themselves...
They're not good team players...
They simply consume nutrients,
And grow,
At the expense of everything around them...
Some relationships
Are like dying from such things...
They can only see themselves
When they look at you...
They're only self-reflecting
When they think of you...
You are just an energy source to them...
Food...
And their hunger
Can be insatiable...
Inhaling every last scrap
Of the love you have to give,
And then demanding more...
Exhausting...
Debilitating...
It's like waiting to die...
You try to go about your normal life...
You try to keep to a schedule,
Get things done,
Even though you know
The days are numbered...
In the end,
Blame is tossed around
Like chemotherapy injections...
Just as poisonous...
Just as bitter...
A metallic taste
Clinging to the skin of the cheek...
Facial muscles tense...
Struggling not to show emotion...
Or struggling to have an emotion...
People get upset
When they feel that
They are not being understood...
Basic customer service...
Make them feel heard, seen, and valued...
Most arguments
Aren't based on objective reality...
They are often simple misunderstanding...
Sometimes an inability or even 
Unwillingness to empathize...
Focusing on the self as victim,
Rather than hearing or seeing the other...
An appropriate song lyric,
"If I speak at one constant volume,
At one constant pitch,
At one constant rhythm,
Right into your ear,
You still won't hear...
You still won't hear."
x

Emotional Chew Toy

 I can't carry your burden
For you...
I can support you
While you work in earnest 
To heal your old wounds...
Wounds that transcend your
Perception of time and space,
But I will not be forced
To feel your unbridled pain...
You can't just unload it all
Onto me via projection
And then act like that isn't abuse...
Not all abusers
Do what they do
On purpose...
Sometimes it's just
A symptom of their psychology...
But it's still abuse...
Whether they mean it
From one day to the next
Or not...
Being your everything one moment,
And then being everything you hate
The next,
That's not the life I want to lead...
I wanted to be the man you loved
All the time,
Even when we disagreed,
But your love was only part time...
It was highly conditional...
And come Monday,
The divorce you filed
Should be able to be seen by a judge
And finalized...
The 60 day waiting period
From the day of filing
Was yesterday...
A Saturday,
So maybe Monday
That thing you asked for,
So many times,
Will finally be a reality...
I will finally be able
To fully let go...
I don't know if you've let go or not,
But you beat the band
In attempts to move on
After splitting me black
In your imagination...
Do I have opinions?
Yeah,
They're as split as your BPD...
I still miss things about you,
And still miss loving you sometimes,
But I still see you
As a whore sometimes, too...
Weak, selfish, needy, and none too attached to fidelity...
(You likely accused me of cheating so often
Because your thoughts or even actions
Made you feel 
Dirty...
Projection...)
Anyways, 
I am no longer your emotional chew toy...
Haven't been
Since you put me out on the street
Last December...
It was a mixture of heartbreak and relief...
Pain and resolution...
Resignation...
Don't know what it was for you...
I can't say that I care, anymore,
What it was for you...
How it felt...
I still sometimes wish that it hurt like Hell for you,
And that you realized
That it was your choice...
Your decision...
Your doing...
Don't try to blame it on me...
Don't try to blame it on past trauma...
Don't try to blame it
On your psychological diagnosis...
I'm good at analyzing patterns...
Your self-hatred
Is your closest friend;
Your fear of abandonment 
Holds it even closer...
Strangely, yet clinically expectedly,
Your fear of abandonment
Has left you all alone
In relationship after relationship
After relationship...
You tried to tell me
They were all extremely flawed people,
But I think I know now
That wasn't exactly the truth...
In the next week,
Or so (you were never great with deadlines),
We should have our union
Dissolved...
You got what you asked for that night...
Maybe you should have asked
For what you wanted...

Not That Broken

 It just popped into my head while driving,
This thought that I'm not all that broken,
After all...
Not nearly as much as I thought...
I'm not too many miles away from neurotypical...
Yea, I've done some stupid shit in the past,
But I've procured for myself a certain measure of psychological equilibrium...
That doesn't mean I won't do stupid shit in the future...
Even the most well-balanced can fall into well-placed tiger traps...
But, in the future,
It will be informed stupid shit...
It will be brand new stupid shit...
Spectacularly so...
There are always more lessons to learn...
I know what not to do within the scope of what I have already done...
I'm sure there are bountiful areas of life experience,
As yet unknown to me,
Where I have none of the necessary tools to cope...
Not the brand specific tools, anyway...
But I will make the tools from whatever is at hand,
As I always do...
MacGyver style...
I recognize that the future is not yet written,
And can feel uncertain, at times...
But I feel ready for it...
Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory...
I am going to get the most out of my time here on Earth
Mining existence for experiences...
How can you know evil until you touch it?
How can you know good until you experience it?
It is like that with everything...
I learn by doing...
Mistakes aren't failures...
Even Hellfire raging tempest tossed fiascos aren't failures...
All are lessons...
You can't succeed without screwing up a bunch of times...
Isn't that what they say?
And it's never too late to succeed...
I've been busy for the last 51 years gathering knowledge...
Gathering experiences...
Doing stupid shit,
But also working magic and performing miracles...
Believe it or not, I've been known to actually inspire people...
Imagine that...
I have an integrated view of myself...
I accept the good and the evil...
The light and the shadow...
I'm neither the best, nor the worst,
But I can be pretty awesome,
When I'm on top of my game...
(Healthy narcissism is a good thing -
Self-esteem is a rare gift
More precious than you might think...)