She’s always there at the edges of sleep….waiting for me in her art studio, a party or a private booth in the back of a restaurant.
She’s always alone. A light in the dark.
I come to her bearing a heart that is pounding, full of unspoken phrases – I miss you, I want you, I love you.
When we see each other… The match, the spark, the flame. The love is instant and all consuming, like gasoline on a fire.
She’s waited decades to hear these words and feel my touch. Decades that feel like lifetimes, yet it feels like yesterday.
We hold each other tightly. After searching lifetimes for one another.
The dream always fades with chaos or distraction on the periphery. Sometimes we drive away together – the world ablaze in our rear view mirror and a setting sun on the horizon.
And then I wake. Thoughts of her entangling me more days than she’ll know.
I understand now.
Running into the wild with me was not an option.
I didn’t have the language. The words. The balls.
Just avoidance. Entangled in a dilemma. Trying not to lie, cheat, steal and destroy a marriage, a family.
Both trapped by our captors, trapped by our silence.
I was armed with weapons to survive childhood battles. Not a man armed to win them.
Now I see both sides of the blade. With my karma scars. A punctured heart and pituitary tear.
Through the rough thunder I bury a loveless, menopausal marriage in the rain, mud, blame and the skeleton of fidelity.
A marriage built on transatlantic charm and opportunistic obsession. A marriage that she hoped would fill the empty space left by the father who abandoned her. A marriage I thought would cure my fear of divorce. A new adventure. Like all adventures, they eventually end.
She got what she came for. The man of her dreams. Kids. American citizenship.
I was never someone to love…. just an opportunity to conquer and discard once there was nothing left.
She moves like a quiet spider until the pattern of her behavioral web emerges. Predator eyes cunningly fixed on her next opportunity.
The wedding ring is off her finger.
I have learned the lesson. Thank you.
I pursue a far away land. Alone again. By myself.
And now I drift back to the edge of a dream, free from my loveless captor.
Waiting for my muse to appear. Like a candle in the dark.