After…

***Real Life**

Two weeks ago we fought. It was the 3rd fight and the one I couldn’t forgive. He commanded me to stop dancing with someone. Now for those who know me, this was akin to a treasonous act in my world. I live to dance. My life is consumed by music and it was the first passion I shared with him. Now he crossed the line.

I wish I could have seen his face when he told me who I could dance with. Inside, I wanted to scream “how dare you?” But instead my tears betrayed me. They kept streaming down my face with no end in sight. I now knew the hurt women in abusive relationships felt. That hopefulness that keeps getting crushed by someone else’s need to be superior and powerful. That pathetic need to assert the power society has handed them just because they were born with a penis. Yes that small growth on every male body that has destroyed many lives. I now understood and I was given no choice but to walk away.

As I drove him home from the party, Patty Smyth’s song “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” was blasting in my head. I had fallen in love with this man but it wasn’t enough. I realized that no matter what I changed, it would never be enough until he had consumed every element that made me, Me. The tears fell as he explained and justified himself. I couldn’t hear him. Patty was shouting in my head.

A week later, we decided to meet again. This time I wanted to make peace. Make peace for him was to reconcile. I wanted to end things. It was a painful hour. It is hard to watch someone beg and plead to be in your life but yet ignore the fundamental fact that who you are and who they are will never mesh. Good byes were said, a movie kiss was had as tears streamed down our faces before we banished each other into the hell hole called the Past. I looked in the rear view mirror as I drove away. He faded into the darkness and I saw myself and smiled.