Today
I found her box
of pain.

Not knowing
it even existed,
I opened it,
read her words,
and drifted back
10 years.

Even before she knew,
or I knew,
or we knew
the end
was near,
there was sorrow,
hurt,
pain.

Only this time,
it wasn’t mine.
It was hers.
Words screaming
on the screen,
loudly,
yet in her soft,
patient,
“I can take it all”
voice.

There was passion
and problems
and pain
and fear
and hurt
and anger
and loneliness
I never knew
she carried.

Reading
opened up
all the things
I didn’t know,
or hadn’t cared
to see.

Her vision:
She saw me
clutching the side
of our bed,
lonely,
back to her,
but I never saw
her fear,
her wondering,
her begging,
her confused yearning
what to do
so I wouldn’t yell,
or be angry,
or threaten to leave,
or emotionally
hurt
her
who I should have
been protecting
and loving.

Like a drug
of pain
I couldn’t stop
feeling,
I kept reading,
and reading,
and piling on
the “whys”
and
the “why nots”
and
the cruelty
I never knew
was me.

She piled it on,
words on
words,
more
and more,
but it wasn’t
about hurting me.
It was about
how
to protect
herself.
How
to keep herself
from fading away.
From dying.
From loneliness.
From nothingness.

In her words
were reflected
and broken mirrored
so many
similar stories
I’ve heard
for years,
from others,
about the pain
women felt
from abusive men,
from cheaters,
from liars,
from narcissistic
self-righteous
SOBs
they’d escaped from.

Hearing the pained stories,
these pig-men were creatures
who have disgusted me,
who have enraged me,
who have made me sick.

Selfish men who hurt women
they’d vowed to protect,
left them cold
and vulnerable
and unsafe
and desolate
and alone
and scared
and lonely.

Are they blind?
How could someone
do such things
and call himself
a man?

How could someone
be such a thing
and call himself
a human?
Much less
a Christian?
Much less a righteous
Priesthood holder?

WWJD?
Not that!
Disgusting!

File > Open.
Now I stand,
looking in her box
of pain,
words black
on pale blue,
reading what she’s gone through,
probing her thoughts,
sneaking into her mind,
knowing what she’s going through.

My stomach churns
more than it ever has
for anyone else’s story.
More than it ever did
as I’ve held others
and comforted them
and said
“That’s in the past”
and
“That’s disgusting.
I’m sorry that happened
to you.
It shouldn’t have,”
and asked
“I don’t know
how someone could do that.”

But it did happen.
And someone could do that.
Only this time,
I’m not hearing about it.
I’m reading about it
in an old family folder
dot doc
from an old
blue light
hard drive I’d rescued
for the photos
and the good memories
I thought I’d find.

Not knowing
I’d find this
memory,
words lining
her box of pain.

Does this pain
ever stop?
Does this repentance process
ever end?
Does this discovery and learning
ever quit?
Or will I always
and forever
keep uncovering how much
I hurt her
and what a bad man
I was?

Am I still?

I’m sick
and sickened
as I read about
the man
she knew.
The pig-thing
clutching to his side
of the bed,
clutching to
his side
of the story,
clutching blindly,
blind to the hurt
he dished out.

He makes me sick.

Does this pain
ever stop?
Does this repentance process
ever end?
Does this discovery and learning
ever quit?
Or will I always
and forever
keep uncovering how much
I hurt her
and what a bad man
I was?

Am I still?

I’m ready to puke
on my shoes,
and take my son’s nine iron
to my knee caps
and punch
myself out.