Day Twenty-Four — Broken

April 27, 2006 — 4:14 AM

Dear Lunch Buddy,

I haven’t written in a couple of days because it hurts to think of you even for a moment.  It hurts so much I have trouble finding comfort anywhere, and I don’t like the desperation I feel in those moments.

I think you have given up on us.  I think you have made up your mind that you have a duty to this woman who does not deserve you, and you have pushed me to the back of your mind and heart as a wonderful fantasy that can never come true. 

I have come to the point that I have to stop hoping.  In the back of my mind, I will always hope that you come to your senses.  Even now, as I tell myself that I have to stop hoping, there is a hope darting elusively between the shadows of my mind that you will wake up somehow.  Perhaps if you keep your promise and talk to your parents. 

There is a reason that I asked you to promise that you would talk to them.  You see, you have coyly accused me of living in denial several times since the beginning of our relationship.  But you are the one who lives in denial.  You are living in denial if you think that things between you and she will ever be any better than what they have always been.  If you would look at your relationship head on, you could admit this to yourself.  But you look at it sideways, with idealistic eyes, and you pat yourself on the back for doing "the right thing," and that makes all the loss that you feel a secondary consideration and that makes all the pain you’re causing me collateral damage.  If you talk to your parents, you can no longer be in denial.  I think you know that and I think that’s why you haven’t kept your promise. 

And you keep telling me that she would never leave you.  Of course she won’t.  Why should she?  You take every single bit of her abuse.  You support her and her children.  You let her fuck any guy she wants to.  You let her do everything she wants to.  And when she gets out of control, you talk her down from the ledge, and placate her, and pet her like the spoiled child she is.  It doesn’t matter if she loves you or not.  She needs you — like Jackson and Ben needed me.

And that voice that is telling you that my situation with Jackson and Ben is different from your situation with you and her…. that’d be denial.  But the truth is that she does not love you.  People who love you don’t treat you like she does.  Case in point: you’ve ripped my heart out and thrown it under a train and I still can’t be hateful to you like she is.

I’m so angry.  I have given you more energy and effort in our 20 months together than she has given you in your whole 10 year relationship.  Why am I not good enough for anyone to make a sacrifice for me?  Why is it that when it comes to me asking for something of the men who claim to love me, I end up alone?  Why is the pain you would cause a selfish, self-centered, narcissistic shrew more sinful than the pain you’re causing me?  I have always tried to be the best person I could be for you.  I would never say anything hateful or hurtful to you.  Even with this rage burning in me, I can’t bring myself to type the angry words that swell in my throat and make the tears run.

And the worst part is that you love me more than you ever have or ever will love her.  Instead of wounding her spirit, you’re killing ours.  I could hear it in your voice the last time we spoke.  You’re going back to being Tin Man: heart buried so deeply in a metal enclosure that you don’t even know you have it.

Lunch Buddy, I trusted you more than I have ever trusted anyone in my whole life.  How can I think of loving again, when this is what it brings me?  And now I have to ask you what last Friday was about.  Because after it was over, I was comforted in knowing that you would never do something so selfish, knowing that it would give me hope that you were coming back to me, even in small increments. 

I don’t mean to imply that you seduced me.  I wanted it so badly.  But I didn’t make any moves because I knew that you would be the rational one.  You would be the one to hold back to spare my feelings if you knew it could only be this one time thing.  I believed that if you made that move toward me, that you would be telling me that you love me so much you can’t let me go.  That you want to be with me forever but you just can’t quite leave her yet.

I’ve never wanted anything else from you.  I never asked you to leave her.  I’ve only wanted the promise that you would never leave me for her.  That’s it.  That’s all.  If you would just make up your mind that I’m the one you want to be with, the rest will fall in line.  And I can wait for a promise.  I just want you and nothing else.

I brought home that kitty yesterday.  I’ve named her Nuggles, but I’m not sure it’s going to stick.  It hurts me to say that word.  I’m having trouble bonding with her, too, even though she’s a total lover.  My heart is broken.  It doesn’t seem to want to open up, even to a kitty that needs me.

Well, in all of my talk about quitting the hope and being honest, I suppose I should be truthful.  Tonight is the new moon.  Tomorrow night it begins waxing again, and I’m going to do weave my prayers for you for one more cycle of the moon.  If nothing else, I found it very comforting.

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to continue writing these.  I try to avoid thinking about you because so very many things remind me of you and make me ache that gaping, hollow ache.  Then again, if I’m praying for you each night of the moon phase until the full moon, I suppose I’ll be thinking of you… so there will be more entries.  This is part of my ritual.

I love you,