Fixtures

There is no greater painThan to remember in our present grief,Past happiness.-Dante’s Inferno, Second Circle of Hell: Lust

There was a man. He’s gone now. With respect to my heartache I recall that these pages once housed such statements regarding other men. So, maybe that’s all this one is: another. Maybe he doesn’t deserve all this misery. Maybe all the others are the same as another’s. 

So, he is now recognized in the past tense. He has chosen to live in my memory because he fears living in my future. But, I believed in an ‘us’. What now? I had intermingled him into my future; career, kids, education, vacation, family, self-discovery…but he wishes to detach himself from these fixtures of the future while I remain fixated and affixed.

He has asked me for time. The same time for which he once asked and I wouldn’t give him. 

I await this man to call and tell me he chooses not me. Perhaps I should choose me for the future...ah yes, the familiar shadows of feminism slither in to massage her desperation. I remember this routine. Now it's time to forget it. Perhaps vodka will help with that.