Her world was rapidly crumbling around her. The very thread that had kept the relationship together for so long was unravelling. The decay had set in and nothing resembled what it once had. It was a massive mess of death mixed in with a just the right amount of hate. And she was scooping it up in heaped helpings and feeding it to herself, imagining it was something other than what it actually was.
The ingredients that were forming the mass of the marriage meatloaf were now resentment, hatred, unwillingness, anger, and despise. It was nothing as it used to be and she didn't expect the feelings that once resided in their home; in their marriage; to ever return to them again. They lived in a world where fairies and princesses were crowned or saved by knights on white horses.
All the words had been said; the really hateful words that she didn't deem necessary to be in the Merriam-Webster dictionary along with the words she craved to hear. They belonged in their own book, hidden far far away, out of reach to anyone aside from the Grim Reaper himself; on a shelf that needed stairs, ladders, and step stools to reach upon exiting a labyrinth filled with goblins and goons.
She didn't expect for her life to be rainbows and butterflies, not since she was a small girl with those images flashed upon her Lisa Frank trapper keeper filled with notes with doodles of lace and the i's marked with a heart at the top. However, she did expect a bit of respect and dignity; decency no less; to be provided to her, not because she deserved it necessarily, but because she was in fact human and a woman. He must had forgotten, along with his identity; if ever an identity ever existed.
Day after day, hour after miserable hour clicking by, unwinding and only leaving her feeling ragged, depleted, and enraged. They could not possibly continue like this. It was a dead end. There was a large sign posted on a brick wall at the end of the road and she hadn't enough strength to neither climb it nor try crashing through it. She placed her forehead lightly on the cold red brick; trying to gain her breath. She turned around, leaning her head back and pointing it to the sky. The sun appeared dull behind a giant grey cloud hovering directly over her, although she squinted from the sting that was left behind after all the tears had disappeared. She slid her body down, feeling the texture of the wall until her bottom was placed on the could cement underneath, her knees tucked in close to her chin and her feet planted solidly on the ground in front of her. She laughed at the absolute irony she had placed herself in. “Feet planted solidly on the ground in front of her,” which reminded her of the expression that meant that everything was in order, going to plan, confident, strong, heading down a path laid for the future. She was in the complete opposite position. It was like gravity had given up on her and turned it's back and ran away. Memories and images danced before her, floating along in thin air. They were always out of reach, impossible to actually consume. It was all a figment of her imagination, as was her thinking that this marriage was ever going to amount to anything. It was unreachable and inconsumable. It was intolerable. Absolutely ridiculous at this point.
When she was a small girl her family visited an amusement park. She was only 12 or so and the steel bars and wooden beams that the roller coasters were made of didn't secure her space in line. She didn't feel confident in them and was shaking at the knees, palms sweaty. She never did get over the hurdle, never did feel comfortable enough to be strapped down in a steel cage and twirl and dance along more steel to flip upside down and jerk and jolt to every which side and feel nauseous upon exiting. She couldn't believe others paid for this sort of torture.
Looking back now, she realized she was paying for it everyday. The emotional roller coaster of this man; made up of manipulation, downgrading, and pure hatred left her feeling tossed, tangled, and downright sick to her stomach. Up and down, up and down, jerked to the right, jolted to the left. Her head felt too heavy for her body to support. Her brain shaken inside of her skull and sending signals to the rest of her body to “WATCH OUT!” She was merely 28 years old and feeling like an old woman with a cane needing to place her teeth in her mouth every morning before the arguing began.
And the words had been said, back and forth and back and forth; battles fought and lost. There was never a win. Winning would be overcoming the obstacles, pushing forth, moving forward and bypassing the feats with grace and composure. There was no grace, no composure, no discipline; there was no love. It was gone, like it had packed up with gravity and they headed out to a whirlwind adventure on their own. Perhaps they took the fun along with them. She hoped it worked out for them and they found happiness along their path.
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