I
found the crumbled up piece of paper underneath our bed while gathering the
dirty linen you refused to throw in our bedroom hamper. It just sat there. So
unassuming. So patient. Waiting for someone, anyone, to come along and notice
it was there. Waiting for someone to bring it back to life after it had been
sentenced to damnation between Barbie Doll shoes and pink and purple sippy
cups. I was happy to breath purpose into it once again.
I grabbed that little piece of
yellow paper and tugged it open. Careful not to tear it and ruin the surprise
it held inside. And a surprise it was. Your handwriting, sloppy and child like,
revealing all the things your lips were too scared to say.
This is a booty call that went
too far.
Maybe we’re rushing.
I never want to be broke again.
I can’t deal with you talking
to your exes. Especially Him.
Is the baby mine?
Can I trust you?
Will you ever be able to trust
me?
Not the words I had hoped for when I
discovered the doorway into the secret places of your mind. But all the
feelings, thoughts, emotions, fears, concerns, and uneasiness I knew you held
in the pits of your existence were here in my hand, transcribed with black ink.
All the things I knew you were thinking but I know you would never dare say.
They were the scribbles of your brain and the confessions of your heart. So I
decided to respond.
I don’t know if I really love
you.
Everything you tell me I think
is a lie.
I’m scared you’re going to
leave me for someone more attractive.
We never should have had a child.
I lost my true self in you.
You’re a child trying to be an
adult.
And with this I crumbled up the
paper again and tossed it back under the bed. Perhaps you will find it while
looking for the remote to watch football. Maybe our daughter will find it when
her yellow ball rolls into the darkness of our bedroom. Maybe I’ll just tell
you it’s there so we can have a conversation about why we are a married couple
that cannot communicate outside of little scribbles on random pieces of paper.
Or maybe I’ll just throw it in the trash so we can continue to pretend like we
are perfect. That our insecurities do not exist and that we never think that
our life, in this moment, is the biggest mistake we’ve ever made.
