Domestic Dispute in E Minor
A preamble of deliberate silences and curt remarks. In the atmosphere a feeling of conflict already poised to detonate. The kind of recurring antipathy that rises every so often to the surface when it has stewed and boiled over. The staccato barbs and knowing looks. Try your best not to light the fuse. Avoid as much contact as possible; speak gently and directly. Count and measure your words for any could be the one that sets off the neutron bomb laying on the couch after a long day. Long day, long week, long life.
How quickly the temperature changes. Like a coin flipped in the air it is either/or. Tender and bitter, generous and vengeful. Two faces of one person appear seemingly at random as if the same breath could heal and brutalize with equal intent. There are no disguises here, no masks. This is honesty. These are the true contents otherwise buried and hidden away. The purified current of venom that runs beneath the day to day. Tomorrow they will shake hands with dressed up acquaintances and laugh inside cordial faces as though everything is fine.
They parrot each other's scorn like children. Blanketed generalities that cover their whole lives. Mortal blows to reduce and injure. Voices are raised higher and higher with every stanza. Too early. Initial bouts of antagonism are met with increasing hostility and they create together a unique echo chamber as only marriage can make. A quarter century of union and this is what you have to show for it. This contempt and denial and hopelessness. What a future to look forward to.
Divorce. It hangs above them like an unspoken curse. Always at the knife's edge. The ace never played, the empty threat. Better, maybe. Better than this warfare. But you know it's bad and forbidden. And they are complacent and comfortable even within this poisonous discord. Like warriors of old they must harbor a love of strife. A pleasure taken in hurting those closest. To feel power and vitriol coursing through your blood is better than nothing at all and better still than the misery at root in your soul. Such unfiltered anger. It has gone from their mouths and seeped into the kitchen counters and floor tiles and stucco ceiling. Like an infection, a hereditary disease. Every cure changes nothing.
The darkness sets in. The implications on the outskirts of their words. Don't want to die, don't want to live this life. You'll never have enough money, never take responsibility. Tomorrow is a vision to be feared. The hollow feeling erodes in your chest and your face sinks while the worst part of you says strike. Hit, damage. Flat spread palms and clenched fists. If this is love my choice is violence. Start burning, start breaking, start cutting. Show them the real meaning of disappointment. Show them the consequence of the death they spew, if only in your mind. Envision it and be ashamed.
Sometime after the wave passes there are apologies and sweet talking. To who? Just words. Just a permission granted to go through this again in a month's time. Every promise broken. Don't let the sun set on your anger. But how can that be when it never quits? It is there just behind the eyes; it gets diverted and forgotten about for a little while but it never departs. It goes about on two legs in perpetual need of a target. And as it is in them, so is it in me.
At night I drive with my knuckles white and my fingers tense even before the brakes slam and the concrete is narrowly avoided. Jesus, I need you. Untangle this ulcerous web in my stomach. This pain I have swallowed and sat upon. The congenital rage and hatred they swig like drunkards. When I slam the doors, when I shout, when I reach for the razor stall my hand. Take it away, trade it for the peace that has been so temporary. That I might be what I wished they were. The only alternate off this road towards inevitable destruction. Because the wall is always there, approaching in the far distance, and will be the rest of my days.
How quickly the temperature changes. Like a coin flipped in the air it is either/or. Tender and bitter, generous and vengeful. Two faces of one person appear seemingly at random as if the same breath could heal and brutalize with equal intent. There are no disguises here, no masks. This is honesty. These are the true contents otherwise buried and hidden away. The purified current of venom that runs beneath the day to day. Tomorrow they will shake hands with dressed up acquaintances and laugh inside cordial faces as though everything is fine.
They parrot each other's scorn like children. Blanketed generalities that cover their whole lives. Mortal blows to reduce and injure. Voices are raised higher and higher with every stanza. Too early. Initial bouts of antagonism are met with increasing hostility and they create together a unique echo chamber as only marriage can make. A quarter century of union and this is what you have to show for it. This contempt and denial and hopelessness. What a future to look forward to.
Divorce. It hangs above them like an unspoken curse. Always at the knife's edge. The ace never played, the empty threat. Better, maybe. Better than this warfare. But you know it's bad and forbidden. And they are complacent and comfortable even within this poisonous discord. Like warriors of old they must harbor a love of strife. A pleasure taken in hurting those closest. To feel power and vitriol coursing through your blood is better than nothing at all and better still than the misery at root in your soul. Such unfiltered anger. It has gone from their mouths and seeped into the kitchen counters and floor tiles and stucco ceiling. Like an infection, a hereditary disease. Every cure changes nothing.
The darkness sets in. The implications on the outskirts of their words. Don't want to die, don't want to live this life. You'll never have enough money, never take responsibility. Tomorrow is a vision to be feared. The hollow feeling erodes in your chest and your face sinks while the worst part of you says strike. Hit, damage. Flat spread palms and clenched fists. If this is love my choice is violence. Start burning, start breaking, start cutting. Show them the real meaning of disappointment. Show them the consequence of the death they spew, if only in your mind. Envision it and be ashamed.
Sometime after the wave passes there are apologies and sweet talking. To who? Just words. Just a permission granted to go through this again in a month's time. Every promise broken. Don't let the sun set on your anger. But how can that be when it never quits? It is there just behind the eyes; it gets diverted and forgotten about for a little while but it never departs. It goes about on two legs in perpetual need of a target. And as it is in them, so is it in me.
At night I drive with my knuckles white and my fingers tense even before the brakes slam and the concrete is narrowly avoided. Jesus, I need you. Untangle this ulcerous web in my stomach. This pain I have swallowed and sat upon. The congenital rage and hatred they swig like drunkards. When I slam the doors, when I shout, when I reach for the razor stall my hand. Take it away, trade it for the peace that has been so temporary. That I might be what I wished they were. The only alternate off this road towards inevitable destruction. Because the wall is always there, approaching in the far distance, and will be the rest of my days.
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