Twice Burned

I sit here, listening to "Nights In White Satin," by the Moody Blues. And I am overcome by a profound sadness. It is a love song. And it fills me with profound sadness. "Nights in white satin, never reaching the end." * Like it will never end. Just like my love for you will never end. My love for you, still lives. It always will. It found a smaller place in my heart, but still lives and reminds me by sending these shocking, electrical reminders of how sad I can be. How much I can ache. Do you believe me when I tell you; you were the love of my life? Never before, and never again, will anyone touch me, with the deep, piercing of my very own being, so that at times we were as one, not two standing side by side.

I know you loved me too. You loved me as best as you could. But you can only slice a pie into so many pieces before it just falls apart and becomes very small crumbs, of no substance and no satisfaction to any one.

When I fell in love with you, the movie "Titanic" was a box office hit. I told you that you were my "Jack Dawson," because you did save me from someone. You did do that. And life with you, was better in comparison. You did make me feel loved and safe. We had that white-light hot intense love. I let you own me. I wanted you to own me. I needed to belong. I loved you and you loved what I could do for you. I will never forget when I told you that you were my "Jack Dawson," like the savior of "Rose," in "Titanic." You looked into my eyes and told me, "Jack died." And so he did. But "Rose's" love for him never did.

Would it have hurt less, if you had just died and ceased to exist, rather than for me to walk away, so that I could survive? We'll never know. You live just a few miles from my home. And I have to have friends help me stay away from you. I promised them I would never see you again, unless I talked to them first and told them what my profound need would be, to have to see you again, to look into the eyes that hooked me and reeled me in, the first time I looked into them. I told you. I love you body, mind and soul. Have you ever loved anyone, like that, any one other than your self, or your children?

"Just what I am going through, they can't understand..."* comes from my speakers. I still listen on, on this cold winter day. I know the writer of the song, understood exactly what I feel. I can not go back in time. Even if I could, I could not make you mine. You were never mine to keep. They say you can't miss what you never had. Is that true? I don't think so. I never "had" you, but we had our time together.

"Letters I've written, never meaning to send..."* Instead, I speak, I write poetry, stories, and yes letters. I pour my heart out to the world. It does not matter if it is safe or not. It was not safe loving you, sharing my home and life with you. I did not grow up thinking of, or being taught about safety. Or I would have never allowed myself to open the door to you.

We both know that I can never tell the whole story. Most people do not believe me anyway. People have told me to my face, they think I may be lying. I don't care. I know I lived it.

I don't need to tell people, the way I used to need tell them. I no longer think of who I am, what I am, is the result of being with you. I am just me. I am just one person trying to make it to the end of my road, one step at a time.

Again the song breaks into my thoughts like a wave breaking on the shore; "Just what you want to be, you'll be in the end..." * I could never change you. I could never make you love me more. I could never make you love only me. I could not make you mine. I could not make our love a safe place to be. I could not continue to live a dangerous life, just because you loved what I did for you, not because of whom I am and what I am. You will be what you are, who you are, until you are done.

" Just what the truth is I can't say anymore."* I remember it all. Almost every detail. More than any other part of my life. But there was always your version of the truth, my version of the truth, and finally the way it really was. Not one single version of the "Truth," compares closely to the others.

I wish just saying "goodbye," was enough. I wish "goodbye,' was like a magic wand which could leave the good memories, wipe away the hurts and pains and leave me with a version of the truth which does not hurt anymore. But maybe my God is doing for me what I can not do for myself. Burned once, shame on you. Burned twice, shame on me. Yeah.... Today, I will just leave it alone.

*Moody Blues, Nights In White Satin, 1967