Anniversary Thought 5

It may have only been a short time,

but then our world became all horror for a time;

every 3 days, for weeks:

burglary AND kidney stones, same day. My guitar stolen;

unexplained food allergies;

Alex, being untreated;

Moving from one apartment to another;

Her mother, who hated white people, including Heather to a large extent, for not being brown enough to know real prejudice;

There was such pain, and stress, and it festered,

and the helpless feeling brought back the feelings of 

PTSD

from childhood shit,

and that was the beginning of the Major Depressive Episode that lasted the rest of our time together.

At first I’d try to talk to her about it, because I'd figured out the problem, that the PTSD had flared up.

She thought the PTSD was new, from the shit that we’d just been through,

and, because she’d been through worse,

treated me ever after as if I’d been

a flake.

She never bothered to ask for clarification,

just made a thoughtless,

unkind assumption

and ran with it.

For as awful as I was for 4 ½ years,

when I had gone to her for help,

finally needing her to take care of me,

she punished me,

in silence,

in snippy answers (get a fuckin’ happy pill)

and a disingenuousness that never ended.

It was only as we were splitting,

actually moving to different addresses

that she got clarification

and I watched her face fall as she made the realization;

she knew then that none of this ever

had to happen.

We hurt each other for years,

horribly,

constantly,

worst of all

NEEDLESSLY.