Wife or Partner

I want to make my life better and I do not know how.

I’m half asleep in the bedroom when I process these thoughts. A can of beer is on the small night stand by the bed. It seems like I slept forever. I do not recognize the room, but I feel I live here. Ema. Who is she? I cannot remember her. Is she my wife, my lover, my partner? She doesn’t like beer cans on the night stand so I put myself together and pick up the can. When I try to open the door, there is no door. I just stepped into another relationship, with Kim. We seem happy; when she tolerates me around that is. I am here for her needs, what can I do? I know she is close by scent, but never by presence. I can never grasp her body. She is elusive and ethereal to me. I also know she lies to me, but I am too lazy to do anything about it and leave.

Yesterday I discovered that lies are painful. Deep inside me there is a hidden spot that hurts. When did it start hurting? I don’t know. Vera doesn’t know either. Now I feel like a scream is growing, greater than my selfish pleasure. After sex my soul cries, as it does not agree with my body anymore.

I wasn’t good enough for Anna so every time her family visited she would hide me in the bathroom. She would always look down on me, “if you want to be around me and my family, you have to be where we are at.” And where were they? In the living room, of course.

All I wanted from Mariam was for her to hold me in her arms. She would always find excuses, greasy hands, dog hair. I watched her hugging other people though. Maybe she was right, and I asked too much of her. After all, love is not all about intimacy. It is also about discipline.

This morning I woke up in a different room. I am no longer with Mariam, I don’t know where she went. I am alone, and since she is gone I can open the windows and let the sun in. All these years with her I never realized my skin turned gray from lack of sun exposure.

I wake up and go straight to the window.

Okay, I think I am not feeling the ground anymore. This thing I live in is moving. How could I not see it?

As a matter of fact now that I finally figured where I want to be it is going faster and faster, and images lose shape and become just splashes of color.

Where are the people I left behind? I cannot go back, as I have no control of this dream.

All I know is that I am standing behind a window and the sunlight and the colors flow in.

I am an old man by now, but peaceful.