I Couldn't Talk About It, So I Wrote A Poem Poetry Contest

If I had a hashtag or even understood them, it might be “TMI.” I don’t lack for stories and opinions. I’ll engage in conversations with friendly total strangers when right away I see they share my views. Imagine being me, with all this honesty, and the one person who ought to be the one to whom I tell my deepest secrets is the one from whom I sometimes hide simple things which I freely discuss with my close friends. For half a century, I have been married and living this way. What I say in my poetry, though it may seem like fiction, once in a while it represents the things I cannot say to the one to whom I gave my hand, along with my trust and unrealistic expectations. I am double (even triple) Earth sign. My moon and sun declared this at my birth. My practicality (and not so much emotion) rules my head. As double water sign, my spouse is the worrying yin to my carefree yang. His buckets of water spill over at times into unforgiving hurt or anger. I cannot always know how his moods might ripple out to people he encounters in this world. As his wife, and now his caretaker too, I’m accustomed to his vacillating moods. I learned some terms in college such as “projection.” This one he employs in his rants against those whose actions almost reflect his own. Of course, I am far from perfect. He is correct in his saying that I’m not a very great housekeeper. But I rarely bring up his flaws to him. I avoid confrontations since one cannot win a battle with a person whose opinions are the only ones that he can see as right. When he tells me I need to learn better communication skills, I laugh inside myself. I wish I could record our weird conversations at these times because telling me I cannot communicate ideas is ludicrous. It doesn't help that he is deaf in one ear and does not always wear his hearing aid in his other ear, which is nearly deaf as well. An industrial accident two years ago gave him a concussion which has somewhat destroyed the cognitive skills he had when he was a hard-working younger man. It's hard for him to focus now, and he feels so dejected that he no longer can work. My marriage is a bit unique. I’ve watched couples whose lives seemed ideal and so much more peaceful than my own was when I first married. I’ve watched with incredulity as such couples divorced. I cannot understand why they can’t recapture their original passion. i care for my spouse, but he makes it difficult for me to love him. I’ve always been there for my husband. A mental breakdown 30 years ago put him on the pathway to healing. He has learned to face some demons and take the pills for depression and anxiety that he so requires. He can even admit sometimes when he is wrong. I see this as progress, and it makes me glad. His tirades are far less frequent now. In fact, he likes to brag to others that I’m the best thing that ever happened to him. He refuses to read my poetry, yet he enjoys telling me I’m pretty. On road trips I sit in complete silence, writing poems. But at home we sometimes have discussions. I can be more open with him today, and yet . . . I can still say something seemingly innocent and he’ll misread it and blow it out of proportion. When an argument ensues, he quickly extinguishes it by yelling angrily at me to shut up. I let this go through one ear and out the other. Were I to stand my ground, the rest of my day would be ruined. Thus it’s my self-esteem that sustains me. I look around at couples reveling in love and romance. Such warm and fuzzy emotions I invent with poetry, and some things I speak of will never find their way to my husband’s one “good” ear. It’s sad to write this, but my spouse could never be my soul mate. Had I been a coward for not walking away in those first bad years? Or should I be commended for staying loyal? I think a lot of women are like me, simply tolerating the partnership to which they’ve grown accustomed I am Earth, and he is Water. I refuse to lug around emotional baggage as my husband does. My physical ailments are more than enough for me to bear. It is said that earth and water together make mud. Mud is not so bad when it has mixed into it our mutual values of family loyalty and a conscientious dedication to our work. Also, mud is so nice to wallow in!