When He Was Good

When he was good, we had the world by the tail. He helped me have a deeper relationship with my mom. When we were good, sunlight and laughter kissed us every day. We kissed back. When we were good, we were each other's bright spot, soul mates, friends till the end, our minds were connected and we made light of everything. When we were good, we floated through existence. I felt almost guilty for the blessed existence that we had - happiness that knew no bounds, that was a giddy and playful and stayed up nights late. When we were good, we were invincible. People stopped us and commented, prognosticating the future that would extend into decades of marriage...

When we were good, I ached for him in the pit of my stomach when he had to go to work. He would come home and tell me how he caught my scent in the air as he turned his head and wiggled it back-and-forth like a wild man trying to catch it again, wanting me. When we were good, we needed nothing but each other. In a one bedroom apartment, we never entered the bedroom because we couldn't be farther away from each other than the full-size futon in the living room. We named recipes for our love, wrote a language of inside jokes. We completed each other.

When we were good, we were so good. It made the bad hurt all the more. When we got bad, I didn't have a partner. When he was bad, I came home to an empty house. There was another person living and breathing, but not giggling, in it. I came home to closed doors and loud saws and things that stopped up human contact. Blocking out human contact I could accept. He had done it before, isolating us so it was just him and me. This was new. He now excluded me. When we were bad, it hurt deeply, gouging out my insides. I failed to reach the one who had been laced into my tissues.

Now I'm out and eight years have passed. I still feel what I lost, but I also see what I gained. I am grateful for when he was good.