The Ugly Nature of Love

I married a woman decades ago because we seemed to want the same things. We loved children and wanted to have our own. We liked outdoor activities, and lived healthy lives. We had great sex, the kind of stuff that you remember for days and months and even years later – though I didn’t. I remember one day waking up and realizing there was more to this relationship than just getting her off. I wasn’t getting off myself, spiritually or sexually. I was feeling a satisfaction around bringing her pleasure, but a question always remained about my own. I imagined it would work itself out in time. The reality is, one cannot count on love to be that ‘work it out’ sort of take on life. It has to be or it is not. Sometimes we think we know what love is and just when we decide we have it cornered something happens, and that feeling, that shared mystique, everything about the chemistry of the moment goes out the fucking window.

I was unhappy in the first year of my marriage. I should have left then and acknowledged the mistake. But, I made a commitment and I am Catholic, so I was stuck, then months later she was pregnant. At that point I wasn’t going anywhere. The other end of that story is that together we did raise two beautiful children, and so there is that piece to give a craving soul some peace of mind. But the mistake I made in the beginning never forgave itself, and I walked around unhappy and confused for thirty years.

Today, I look at love in a different light. I fell in love with someone decades ago whom I could not be with. I wanted to, we both wanted to but we both eventually knew we could not, I still want to and wish she did too, but together we can no longer speculate. I have gone through a divorce in the last couple of years and as freeing as that has seemingly been for me, it has also offered a cinching hangman’s noose around me I have not been able to shed. I swore I wouldn’t fall in love with anyone ever again, and I did. I fell in love with an old high school sweetheart, and together we had an unbridled half year of romance and lovely elegance, but then it unraveled. And while doing so, I could not get a grip on any of it, and just slowly degraded any credibility I had in the relationship with every following move.

I tried to be accepting, but I needed answers. I tried to give her time, but I missed her too badly. I tried to navigate through my head how everything she had said to me, poured her soul out to me mattered, and yet when I spoke to her it was as if none of it existed, and I tried to have her explain that to me and I couldn’t, I just wasn’t able to ever have the conversation I hoped we might.

This morning I woke and realized all the changes I made for her. My wardrobe, my look and appearance, my choices in life, all of them were made for her and not for me. And she knew that, there was a time even when she didn’t mind that but all of a sudden one day it became tiresome and in her mind we were done. Didn’t matter at all that I could never catch up to the reasoning.

So ugly love, yeah, it exists. It happens when two people are no longer thinking the same, one is desperately moving a different direction, while the either thinks the fight to stay together is still a good fight.

I’ve lost in love nearly all my life, and yet, I still have some hope. I still search for meaning in what some would call the life of a hopeless romantic.

© Scott F Savage 6/2021

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An Angry Man

Oh one might think

blaming

a callous nature

nothing beyond a looming storm

meant for destruction

old oak now rests in

her dining room

such is rage

out of control

yet a natural event

would suggest

helpless reprieve.

 

Real is the anger

remains inside our body

not at all meant toward

hurting another

only an indication

who carries such fury

get their shit together

before suffrage

condemns those living lives

amongst each other.

 


©️ Scott F Savage 10/2029

These Traveled Trails

A familiar place,

would be so near my eyes

I’d have to stop and look around

see the trees, shelters near by,

a place we might see skis

or bicycles moving by,

while the two of us,

you and,

me and,

we could be together there

alone

I’d reach out and touch your shoulder,

your smile that energy that wave of wonder

would electrify the air around me,

us, around us,

it really would be us out there

with the forest nearby,

able to mute the dialogue that would

tear us apart,

if we just we keep looking at the trees,

all the leaves, the wilderness,

no answers there,

just the beauty,

you and me,

the trees …

and then,

came along a sudden breeze

sentient sensations

you and me.

© Scott F Savage 9/2020

Stand With Me

Nearby stands a soul

whole would be a gift

drift upon the sea eddy

a mystique exists beyond

the reach of one humanity

instead all speculation

water is a splash of wonder

cause the eye to fantasize

just how important

and why

and when

and how

will any of this ever affect

my life as it is

capable only of

a gathering of wood

the smoke in the air,

a campfire nostalgia

makes me remember

a wanton desire

to hold her hand nearby,

all the faces we could see

if the light of the fire

would flicker our way,

could they really wonder

about you and me,

or is it just seeing their own

expressions of judgment

caused everyone in their own

perpetual quiet

to wonder out loud,

in their sweet apparent

silence.

Are we all this pre-arranged.

© Scott F Savage 8/2020