He turned mean

I turned cold

I grew numb

And he grew old

I was able to tell him how mad I was. How I couldn’t believe him. I couldn’t tell him though that any passion that ever existed was gone. Any intimacy had died for lack of nourishment. I couldn’t say that the sex was so terrible. That it felt like nothing. That he didn’t care to please me. That he must have known it was exasperating, overly drawn out, frustrating, pointless.

He has to have known how fake everything was on my part. I’m pretty sure he was faking everything on his. Things used to not be that way.

That wasn’t the natural, inevitable ending. It didn’t have to be. It still might not be. But it couldn’t get more debased. More stripped of any good intentions.

He said something at the last bar. Right in my ear. He said, “Write something. You are so brilliant. You are so unique. That mind is capable of anything. Just write something. Not about the everyday this and that. About where you want to be in five years. And then become it. Because you’re not who you were. You are not that girl who was so scared of her parents. I don’t care if it’s a screenplay or a novel or a poem or a haiku or economics or whatever. Write your future.”

Is that how things end? With disillusionment and a bad taste in my mouth? If it’s up to him, then yes.

I don’t think this is who he is for the rest of his days. He could return to softness. To vulnerability. To seeking wisdom instead of wealth. But for now he is small, smaller, smallest. Mean, meaner, meanest.

The final gift might not have been channeling wise words about my future. It might have been the way in which he shook me loose so I wouldn’t look back and feel free to look forward.