I Cheated

Your eyes are piercing.
I owe you to stay.
I owe you to stand here and face you,
Allow you to express the pain and anger I caused.

I can offer excuses and reasons.
I can put justification and blame on the table,
Hiding behind their flimsy shelter, from the truth of my betrayal.

There were reasons, but reasons don’t erase pain.
Reasons for this defection of devout affection could only serve to cause you more pain,
Fueling anger that is already dangerously cold.

I want your rage.
I would rather feel your fists than to bear the weight of your pain.
Call me a bitch, a whore, just don’t ask that one question.

Why?
So laden with undertones and accusation.
My own guilt, unable to answer this one question would take me to my knees.
I strengthen, tighten up.

In this, I have no right to tears, no right to pain.
Self flagellation will have to wait.
Right now I owe a debt that I may not be able to pay.

The pain is too deep for the cruelty I seek, you say.
I want to slink away,
Hide in a corner away from your brown eyes.
From the man behind that stare I vowed to love forever.

How did you get your salt back?
How did you figure out a way to break our covenant?
Show me the way, I want out too!

Now is the anger, the fury of betrayal.
This I welcome.
Like a coward I welcome this distraction from anguish.

I didn’t, I respond.
It shouldn’t have happened.
The foolish, obvious nature of this statement shames me.

No, it shouldn’t have happened.
I can say I was drunk.
I was lonely.
Your work is your mistress and I couldn’t compete.

Excuses.
Unworthy of us, but they are all I have to offer.
This is my fault?
No, it’s mine.

I offer the response you expect, the answer that is true.
But this is not all black and white.
At some point love stopped being enough.
My carnal affection may have strayed first, but you left first.

There are things a woman needs from her man and you haven’t been giving them.
She needs to know she is special, beautiful, desirable.
She needs to feel wanted, necessary, unlike every other convenience in his life.
More than a maid and substitute for your fist.

You blame me.
I don’t want to turn this into who is wrong; I’m wrong.
I was wrong.
My love, I want us to move past this and we won’t until we find the root.

Who said I wanted to work past this?

At this, there is no defense.
No tightening, no strength to pull in around myself.
This blow of devastating fear is more than mortal knees can support.
I drop to the floor.

You don’t mean that, I whisper.
Your face makes fiction of my hope.
I can take anything, everything.
Just don’t leave me.

Reality is so much more brutal than the fantasy of forgiveness I imagined.
I love you.
I’m in love with you.

It was just sex.
Don’t throw us away.
Don’t leave me.

The pain has finally given way to enough anger to loosen your tongue,
Harsh slashes from your tongue tell me what you think of me.
In this moment I’ll take it.
I’ll be the villain you call me so long as we have hope for tomorrow.
Tell me there is yet hope.

We made a promise to each other.
I am still committed to that promise.
I didn’t stop loving you,
I just cheated.

Just?!
There is no “just” for my straying isn’t simple, but I have only ever loved you.
Only ever been in love with you.
Would only be wife to you.
Please forgive me.

Love me like we promised so many years ago.
I want the love we shared before the chaff of being a grown up choked the purity of our love.
I am weak and I have fallen;
Don’t throw me away.

I would stand with you again.
I need you; you have no idea.
I need you to be the strong leader you promised me you’d be.
Tell me we can move past this.
Tell me you can love me stronger than ever for this test.
Tell me there is hope.

Leave.

One word, cloaked in finality.
I am shattered, devastated, without permission to be.
I can do anything but that.

Don’t you see this test can destroy us or make us stronger.
We are destroyed.
No!
No, we can’t be.

A blow struck to the foundation of us, but that happens in construction.
Sometimes you have to tear something up to make it better, stronger.
Years from now, months down the road,
We can look back on this thankful we didn’t give up.

I gave up the moment I knew.
What was mine is no more.
Can’t you see?
Open your eyes to the reality of what you have done to us.

How can I ever kiss you without imagining you kissing him?
How can I hold your hand, trusting that it is for me alone?
I am but a man.

You speak well.
Your needs for love and completion.
My obligation to forgive.
I can forgive you apart from you.
I can forgive you without being in love with you.
The chaff wins.

I won’t let it.
The choice isn’t yours.
Then who’s is it?
I can give up, but beyond your anger is pain.
Beneath that pain, there is love.

Love for me, for us.
You remember us.
The us we were before cares became overly cared for.

I offer my hand in supplication,
Prayers run through my heart,
Begging our Father to intercede on my behalf.
Not because I do or do not.
Because I am weak and in need.

I love you.
If you can honestly say you no longer love me…
Don’t say it.
Don’t say you don’t love me.

Leave.

Why?
So you can build up your defenses?
So you can shore up your pain and anger against me?
I won’t give you “time”.

The battle is now, the time cannot be changed.
This is where we take the enemy down.
This is our battleground.
Take the field.

You find yourself to be worthy of a warrior?
I hope I am worthy of mercy.
I hope somewhere inside when you look upon me,
You see the woman you love.

See your friend.
The person you laughed with.
The friend who held you through gain and loss.
I celebrated your success as if it were my own.
Your joy was my joy, your hurt my hurt.

We are one.
I am your friend.
Your love, your lover.
I am your wife.

I see the tears in your eyes, turning the brown of your eyes into murky pools.
I know that we will pass this point eventually.
More words will be passed; more pain spread.
In the end we will be stronger, more deeply in love than ever before.

It will be alright.
Still, in this moment, I caused pain to someone I should have sheltered from pain.
The fact that it will be fixed doesn’t diminish the damage.
The cure doesn’t erase the pain of the disease.

I am so sorry.
Baby, baby…
I am so sorry for hurting you.
For betraying you.

The tears I don’t have the right to fall free down my face.
The sobs I’m not entitled to wrack my body as your arms come around me.
I’m so sorry.
A litany of regret, utterly sincere, utterly inadequate.

I do love you.
I want to work this out.
I…
Words fail you, but I know.

I know, and I hate myself for an instant, for the scar tissue now marring our love.
We’ll be ok, you whisper.
I need you.

Just like that two warriors, in full battle regalia take the battlefield of love.
Victory the only available outcome.