There’s a funny hair that grows on your left shoulder. It used to annoy me so I’d pull it out. I know where that scar on your cheek came from. I was there. And I was scared to death but I never put the camera down. You’d give me a signal if something were really wrong. The shirt I got you for Christmas last year lies in a crumpled heap on the floor by the door next to her shoes. It’s got a flock of ravens on the back symbolic of me. I remember when you broke your tooth in that match with Iron Man. In a sick form of love and adoration I tried to find it “for the archives”. I knew you’d want it. The frames leaning against the wall hold pictures that we picked out together for our living room of our once happy home. Now, those poetic trees will look down on you, providing visual shelter, as you hold her. A solitary photograph of our children hangs in the center of the wall. Their innocent smiles frozen in time with their trusting eyes looking back at you. We were in the room that day coaxing them into the perfect pose. She will never hold these thoughts and memories the way I do. Instead she holds you.
In years past and months recent I’ve felt the first movements of life of the children that call you “Daddy”. I see you & I when I look at them. The perfect blend of our best features combined with interesting personalities. They have names and a consciousness. The Oldest shares our warped sense of humor. The Middle Son has my eyes but your build, The Youngest Boy has your hair and eyes and my arms and legs. Mini-Me has your eyelashes and iris’ identical to your shade of blue. She has my coal black hair. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember. It’s comforting and haunting all at once. They are pieces of us carrying on their own lives. I wonder if you ever see them that way too. Or are you able to separate?
I’ve been ignored and kissed and loved and hated and left and found and lost and pushed. Any other person and I’d say no. You enter my lungs and I can feel you hit my bloodstream. You flow through my veins. When it’s finished sometimes I don’t feel the exhilaration of satisfaction but the primal fear that I’ll never feel it again. Hours, minutes and seconds go by and I frenziedly hang on to every shred of evidence of you until the new fix arrives. On the exterior you see a cold fish with an empty gaze. Inside I’m melting without your freezing touch. And I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I’m your alarm clock. I hold your wallet and your past. I keep tucked inside my soul the number of the hospital room you were in for surgery. I’m overflowing with your deepest secrets, protected health information and your high school mascot. I’m good to fill out a form and not letting you fall (hard). I sit next to you, stand beside you, lie beneath you – even in our darkest hours. Answering every call, anticipating every text – knowing that when the next doesn’t come it’s because she is getting my reward for being a good wife. I’m there at 2 a.m. so that you aren’t alone. I’m on the other end of the line at all hours of the night when she is busy. In my head this is more than I’ve had. Each song you send me is filled with confused hope of normal. You kiss me goodbye as I walk you to the door following secret rendezvous couplings in the dark where you act the part of loving husband. In the morning you are not mine. And I miss you. But I hate you with love so deep and passionate that even Homer couldn’t put it into words.
What’s it like for you in there? Do you think of me too? Do you look at me and see a ghost or do you see corporeally? Is touching me a dream come true? Or am I just another thing to use and place upon a shelf? I see love in your smile sometimes. I pray that you’ll realize the greatness of the family we have built. I’m on my knees behind doors closed screaming to God prayers that you’ll put down your weapon, back away from her slowly and decide not to commit this heinous robbery. I’d tell you that it’s not too late to walk in the door and start moving forward again. But I’d be whispering into the winds of a hurricane.
