Saturday, April 12, 2014

the rosacea lens

i scared him yesterday. 

i got embarrassed and then started crying. it was the most wonderful sex ever, truly, and my eyes rolled up, so i thought he thought i was ugly and dissolved into tears. 

and remembered all the things david had done. david, my first true partner. who let all his insecurities turn into assaults. pretty soon i was wailing and would only let the most urgent shaking and poking rouse me to assure him that things are most certainly not okay. 

it was a long cry. bad cry. he could tell what kind of crying, like, distraught vs. embarrassed vs. hopeless vs. heartbroken. then i told him how awful it is to know that if i die before i get my life fixed mom will have the worst things to say about me. that they're so untrue and so heartbreaking to know. and that it's just so wrong to see her say it's my fault that things like men following me down the street at night are my fault. that I gave them permission, asked them to. that if someone rapes and kills me it'll be "poor beth, she trusted the wrong man because she was too slutty and stupid to know better. she was always giving it up to every man she met. if she'd just..."

i remarked that he's filled out. that it's over. his youth is gone. he looks like someone else and it's scary during sex but it's fine. that's normal for men. i just feel sad; he's not the sexy young thing i liked. he isn't someone i find irresistibly funny or unique. ubiquitous, and I feel cheated. but that's okay. he's all, what, i'm fat!? and he does have a paunch all of a sudden, he's too skinny for one but age has settled. no, 'thirties,' I reassure him, thinking back on niks and how she would laugh that that's the Deaf way to put it. his nose was broader last week and his hair shockingly gray. he was getting deeper devil's horns of hair with strays still boasting the old hairline. 

yesterday his face was that puffy old-man face to match his new nose. his hairline is sharply defined again. when he sits down his stomach looks like skinny grandpa. he still has an amazing ass. time will never take that away while he's still breathing. 

only--is it really enough, if someone divorces and wants to marry me, to marry for compassion and wonderful sex? is it? i worry that i need to end this because--well, she really doesn't know. and he is way too invested in his texting life with me. i feel like i'm not being fair if i let this evolve where I never want it to go, and have to say, you shoulda been more invested in your marriage. don't come crying to me.

is it? he makes me cringe with his jokes. most are recycled over generations and recycled over his own lifetime. others are just crass. few crack me up. how could we be happy together without this arrangement?

but i do love him and it is really confusing not to be able to control that. when did i lose that filter, that stopper? when did it stop mattering that i'm too ugly to want back, too unwanted within the Deaf community to be safely paired with, too smart to keep recognizing my feelings for someone and letting them destroy friendships? we fight because i'm allowed to ask about her and their life together and daily doings but he can't spontaneously bring that stuff to conversations. but I know when and how to create a safe space, a buffer, and leave that buffet when i've started feeling crampy. 

we keep finding out things about me. i keep letting him see things david and joe were far too dangerous for. too immature, too willing to hit me, mock me for "sluttiness," use against me. and it does seem like love. i'm far too old for new love and to let things fool me. 

but, hello, here i am. who are you again?

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