misery’s company
March 8, 2016 § 4 Comments
Of the two he was most certainly less concerned by the passage of years. He had traded the youthful effervescence of his happiness for a burden of guilt decades previously. Marriage was meant to be a service of silence, a condition he would endure; it was a sacrifice of joy that he labored over with sloppy devotion. Trapped inside aches he could not escape, he was left to the nightmare of his days.
There was a time he might have chosen differently. A stretch of summer that played against the winter of his spirit, when he might have walked another truth; where for the briefest of occasions he was more father than husband. Clumsy in the novelty of his permission to play at a simpler experience of parenting without the demands of a more calculated performance of marriage. He would never be a good man, but he might have been a better father.
It was a tarnished sense of duty that bound him to his penance; a visceral need to numb himself for the sin of a private wish.
–
There were pictures that hinted at another woman, perhaps once beautiful, cloaked deeply beneath the leathered skin of so many summers under a lazy sky. She liked to parade these photographs in defiance of age with the same postured sentiment she framed images of family she did not know.
Underneath the performance of exuberant cheer, there was a bitterness that chewed the words she spat from angry lips. Even in noisy demonstrations of generosity, you had only to look to the fleshy folds of exposed skin for the weight of extravagance hoarded to ward of the poverty of her spirit. It is the worst kind of prison that is built around greed. Lavish walls of solitude, fortified by false ideals.
–
Bound together by their secrets, they lumbered through the discomfort of old age leaning heavily on a crutch of self-righteous indignation. Blame and misery permeating whatever joy they might have once shared.
scribblechic 
If they only knew…afraid to look within and see….really see, their fears.
And be free.
There go I, but for that courage to challenge my worth that was hammered into me by one of those so called uncaring parents. But in truth, hindsight, and a great wisdom, I now see the truth of my journey. That parent gave me something with great love, so that I would become exactly as I now am.
Great post Marie, and a very wise share, for you can see their hearts. They have shown you what not to be.
Thank you, Mark, for your patience as I play at broken characters. Fact or fiction, there is much to be learned from our mistakes.
Many a forest I could not see for the tree’s Marie, but yes, they all teach 🙂
[…] you to those who have afforded me the luxury of sounding out the shape of something new in complicated characters and fragmented storylines. Pieces of personal truth and creative license make for a colorful […]