the fear is real

 dear love

i can't i'm

afraid to ask it outloud

but why do i feel like

i'm a placeholder?

no no it's that i don't know

how to communicate what i want to 

to you. we've come to an impasse

composed of silence and resentment

at least on my part.

you seem to be obsessed  with your 

own problems which do not include me
but i wonder how you'd react 

to me cheating? i wonder if that

would interest you? i'm not

interested in cheating and for

all the reasons why you can 

just say men.

so that is not an avenue

open for me to use

to try to get thru to you.

tho i understand how

some justify being serials

the personal shame of betraying

someone you once loved

is too much for me to do it again.

it may be why some ppl flirt to create jealousy

 to feel as if their partner cares

about what they do.

  

all of my sadness centers

around this silence

this deferment of a conversation

about the health of our relationship

you will listen to me talk about

how you treat your child with a degree

of acceptance that you will not apply to

my critique of your treatment of me.

i'm calling it critique so you might

look at it from the outside

as you know my comments on your parenting

are based on evidence from reality 

observed by a third party. 

because i have clearly declined

 responsibility for this  child

(point for the minus category)

though present for the raising of

my opinions can be considered valid.

but when it comes to you and i?

apparently my point of view 

is wrong. so many statements

met with contradiction. requests

met with procrastinations-in -perpetuity.

critiques taken for attacks. 

recently you thought i wanted to kill 

you because i was talking to you

with a knife in my hand.

we were in the kitchen, preparing

dinner.  misunderstandings  

left punched, right hooked

 us into a semblance of sensible

we talked for a moment

when i became me again

instead of your ex.

* 

but what if that's what i'm about to be?

if we can't talk then why are we together.

i'm sure you think we talk because 

you never quit.

let me outline my issues

i know i keep you amused

but i feel i'm being used

you drive 3 hours for work.

you could have a job close  in town

and make as much but you can't do research

and you'd have to deal with real children

a lot of them all day

so you drive 3 hours for work.

but you have a child that can't be at school

before the traffic gets bad and you have to get

child ready for school tho he's old enough

to do it himself and you have to pack a lunch

though he can and will eat the uncrustables

from school lunch and LOVE them

and you must take a shower shit and shave

everyday but tuesdays plus you make 

bacon eggs for him everyday and coffee

and you wonder why you look so haggard

like some single mom like the his mother should look

but you won't give yourself a break on any of these fronts

they must be done exactly as you desire so you do them.

and that's just your morning routine.

every once in a while something goes really wrong

and you call on me to help you because i'm 

in your village. and every time i want to say no.

but i've capitulated because it's what partners do

and now i'm in charge of getting him to do

him english homework because i'm a poet.

i also threw his birthday party on xmas day

and made sure he had company 

as well as presents.

that was me. and i don't even remember 

that you said "thanks". to be fair

you had 4 broken ribs and were 4 days

out of the hospital with a possibly still leaking

lung. so i didn't expect you to be able to do that

but a heartfelt thank you would have been nice

and i don't feel like you said that,

maybe that's on me though. 

maybe i can't hear you anymore.

all i hear is your complaining.

today i told you please

go back to making weed your whole personality

because this obsession with your accident

is wearing real thin. you didn't know what i was

talking about. you said it's not true. you told me

about the pain you're in and how i seem to not believe it.

as if you don't remember how you were

when my arm was broken. we both forgot

the things i couldn't do.

so honestly, i don't know your limitations

but when you tell me, maybe twice, i respect them

and try to accomodate. cuz that's what partners do.

for instance you asked to me leave the toilet lid up

because it  hurt to bend down so i make it a point

to not forget.  you can't take the garbage out 

of the can, shouldn't lift anything really but

certainly no more than 10 lbs. so i have to remember

garbage days now.

but you still leave your laundry in the laundry room

after 5 years of begging pleading and anger

and i have given up and joined you in your sloth.

are there dishes in the sink 

that you left from making breakfast?

3 days worth?

i rinse my bowl and spoon, i rinse my cup

i wipe the counter

i ignore the dishes tho sometimes on saturdays

i'll do whatever remains of your piecemeal cleaning

because the floor should be swept and mopped

and least once a month.

i'm already weary of this.

writing it out has me wondering

which of us is wrong? 

compatibility doesn't have right or wrong.

i feel like when we were a childless couple

we were compatible but that's probably

nostalgia rose coloring. 

i mean you were always a hoarder

and i can't say that you'd be any more

on the ball about reducing your hoard

if you didn't have all the extra curriculars

and homework to keep up with. 

you'd probably just spend more time

aquiring more.

i have a hoard. letters from the seventies

from friends and mom. i have boxes of

high school drawings when i thought i could be 

a visual artist, young girl writings and journals

high school yearbooks. some stuff from all the dead

ancestors that i haven't relinquished.

sometimes i want to burn them all in dad's chiminea

but i still cling to the past as if that confirms a path

to now.  so i understand hoarding in theory,

but to collect things that have no personal memories?

to buy stock for a purpose and then let it rust/

to say you're going to recycle down to stripping

the plastic jacket from wires, then spend the day

smoking and scrolling weed sites for bargains

because the feds are making this illegal again so 

you gotta stock up with credit you want me to give you/

this kind of hoarding is a sickness

that i can't cure nor really want to live with so

what do?

you aren't going to change. and i don't love this about you

and i don't love being a live in grandparent

and i don't love how everything i say is contradicted, invalidated

or googled. what, exactly, is it that you love about me 
that is not related to sex. and if it's only sex then we are in trouble

cuz you know why. 

it's not that either of us are wrong

and you have changed your outlook

and i have changed my mask

to just ignore the ways you ignore

and decide that we're 

what, 

more than roommates

but less than lovers

we can be friends with occasional

benefits. nah, that sucks

what sucks is how your hands

can still take away my pain

and i can still take away yours

and we don't do that anymore.

because i can't talk to you

because i'm afraid of how you'll respond

and then i'll have to make a decision

and give up on the possible

because you will not