On A Personal Note

[edsiejka]

On A Personal Note

by Edmund Siejka

They didn’t fit
Like bookends
Or what people might describe
As a nice looking couple.
Seeing them together made a jarring sound
Like chalk clawing on blackboard
But what was so bad about this new couple?

I knew why.
She left me for him.

It took me a really long time to understand
What it meant to forgive someone
And I always wondered could I
Forgive someone who chose to hurt me?

She knew me all along
She had me figured out a long time ago
Sometimes I would catch her staring at me
With that look on her face
Was it a sneer?
Or just a funny face?
I was too stupid to know the difference.

Perhaps I didn’t realize what I had done to her
Allowing myself to be surrounded by shadowy people
Believing in them
Following them
But they cared less about me
Than I did for them.

For weeks and months
I thought only about her
Eager to scale the wall that surrounded her heart
To say I loved her
But obviously I failed
Because if we accidently met
All I got
Was a quick turn of her back
Ignoring my presence.

So, I decided the only thing I could do
Was to let her go
And start over again.

[judih]

cleanse out the old
make room for new impressions
life's spiral

[saw]

often, all we can do, is move on
but that doesn't mean completely forget
once we entangle it's not that easy to untangle

[sasha]

I clung to the anger for a long time after my wife left me
it helped mask the pain of rejection
the shame of failure
and the despair of loneliness
but it was also corrosive
making me prone to bitterness
and when I finally let it go
I realized I was actually happier to be on my own
a notion reinforced by subsequent affairs...

some of us were not meant to partner

[saw]

yeah Roy
"some of us were not meant to partner"
the odd thing was how much effort I put into partnering
but I must agree, I may be unsuited for it....

[sasha]

...
"some of us were not meant to partner"
the odd thing was how much effort I put into partnering
...

Me too. My marriage collapsed in 1989, & my journals from the 90s are filled with desperate hopefulness for the women in my life - some of whom were just attractive strangers I passed in the halls. I guess I had some adolescent expectations of what I thought I wanted - even at age 40+ I still had a lot of growing up to do. Managed to get my heart broken a few more times in the process too, but it smoothed out eventually. It helped to start checking the "Single" marital status box instead of "Divorced", and thinking that "confirmed bachelor" wasn't such a bad identity to adopt.....