the habit of being

He asks me if I hate him, because I make faces, squint my eyes. He asks me if I hate him, because I speak in raw tones and always sigh. I reply vaguely that I do not know what it means to hate, because I am afraid that I do and it disgusts me.

We lie around naked in the aftermath of our love, making uncomfortable jokes in the squalor of our bed, and I fear that I may truly hate him for this and every orgasm I never had. So many small and all-encompassing things are these worries that plague me night after night as I tear myself apart while he soundly sleeps, so close by that I feel every rise and fall of his breath and chest. It has been this way for so long.

I have much I would like to say but simply cannot. His body is still like home to me, his heart the softest pillow for my head.

And in the aftermath of it all, when I will no longer let him touch me, out of nowhere he will become so kind. Everything I thought I knew yesterday or last week is replaced again by the things I thought I knew four years ago, and how I toss and turn this way, trying to make it all fit together. I know I cannot hate him. Why must I act this way? Why can’t I lower my voice and speak so that he may understand, so that we might find peace with one another?

Forgivenesses as epic as this one promise such relief, a great sighing surrender held so far at bay. Oceans and eons separate me from this forgiveness, this sanity, the relinquishment of my undying expectations. I would rather claim this prize than the heart of any other man, any come-again love there might be waiting. I would give it now, this forgiveness I seek, were it not for the heat that rises, blanketing the sides of my face, tangling me again in the same old dirty sheets. I struggle to escape the blankets and then am instantly so cold.

The tears come straight from my thickest bones, in great heaving sobs, as my heart beats frantically and I can barely catch my breath. I am so red and so confused.

I have given myself nothing but him to hold onto, and he will be leaving soon. I will be all alone, sitting in bookstores and in beds, reading poetry only so that I might write prose.

I am afraid.