The truth you refuse to hear is how the sentence began in my head but the words didn’t pass between my lips.
I did my best to smile and maintain a calm and inviting manner but I can’t say for certain if I passed it off.
Can’t say if they noticed the lack of sparkle in my eyes or caught the barbs whose escape I couldn’t prevent.
Part of me doesn’t care. Part of me waited for the opportunity to pounce upon them and pound them with the facts they deem unnecessary and irrelevant.
Part of me wondered what would happen if I just let go and said all I needed to say and then some.
Would things be any harder than they already are? Could I make it any worse?
It is not the same as fighting with someone you planned or thought of making a life with. Not the same as slamming them with poetry and daring them to prove they don’t love you anymore.
Not the same as challenging them at all, but I sometimes wish it was.
Your Duplicity
Your duplicity is wasted upon me got trapped behind my gritted teeth but just barely.
I struggled not to spit them out with a double dose of venom and disdain knowing the ears wouldn’t hear and internalize what I was saying but wondering nonetheless if maybe I was wrong.
Wondering if maybe I said it without growling I might wake them from the stupor they have to be in to say such things. Hoping that I would pierce the veil of stupidity they live in but knowing the safer move was to remain silent.
Sometimes safer makes me itch.
Sometimes it makes me antsy and uncomfortable because my nature is to swing for the fences and or run the ball straight up the middle.
But there are those moments where discretion is the better part of valor and today I strove for chivalry.
Still if it had been with a lover or someone similar you could flash a smile and walk away knowing that somewhere in the echoes they would miss you and there would be whatever small measure of meaning we find in such things…if any.
Do Another
Hours later I stood in front of a mirror at the gym curling dumbbells and marveling at how fast my arms respond to training.
They aren’t cut like they once were but the raw muscle has come roaring back and the heavier weights I used to lift will in short time no longer be referred to as “used to.”
My back is responding in similar fashion, while other parts come along at a slower but steady pace.
The simplicity of it pleases me.
When I adjust my diet and exercise as I should and can I see the expected results.
There are no lies, no duplicity here.
All is as it should be, more or less.
So I push myself to do another, appreciating the burn and the clickety clank of metal on metal.
The plan is to position myself for the second third of life in a way that will make my physically capable and able for years to come.
****
Do another doesn’t work as I wish in all areas.
The push to make things happen and move goes in stops and starts and drips and drabs.
A orange man with bad policies and bad character stands in place on television smirking at the camera.
I ask myself if he has any compassion and wonder if my dislike and distaste for him is pushing me to wonder if he is exploiting the pain of others.
It is impossible to say for certain, “you must give him the benefit of the doubt” says an internal voice.
Time passes and not one word is given to those who were murdered on his watch by men with guns and the question of compassion returns.”
“You must give him the benefit of the doubt” says the voice again.
“An enema might be better but it wouldn’t help clean up his shit for brains. He is a menace and you’re not Mother Theresa.”
The response to the internal voice sounds remarkably similar to the rumble that comes from my throat upon waking.
“That dude couldn’t walk the line if it was 25 feet wide, but you can. Go Johnny go, be good.”
It sounds like gibberish to most but to me not so much. I understand the words and the intent.
Today was a DAY and I never did tell them the truth they couldn’t hear, but damn if I didn’t want to.
