A (true) story and two haiku
Today I learned that the plural of “haiku” is “haiku.” Neato!
These haiku are from late 2002 or early 2003. It was midwinter, sometime between Thanksgiving and the end of winter break. I was seeing a guy and we had different ideas about our relationship. He was indifferent; I was infatuated. He tried to keep it casual; I (oh-so-embarrassingly) threw myself at him. He was very honorable about the whole thing; I refused to take “no” for an answer. We had a bunch of mutual friends, so he did what he could to create some distance between us.
I had never been rejected before. It hurt.
Solemn, you uttered,
“What we did never felt right…”
…it felt right to me.
I was sleeping with the guy while in a long-distance relationship with my high school boyfriend. I didn’t even care about my boyfriend’s feelings and I never felt guilty about cheating on him. You could call it cosmic irony, but it was really just selfishness. I think a lot of young adults go through that sociopathic phase.
Apathy crushes.
The wings of my mind are clipped;
My soul caged, muted.
I wish I could say I got a lesson in empathy out of the situation, but I didn’t. In fact, the boyfriend and I broke up and made up several times before finally calling it quits. And the guy who rejected me? I didn’t really learn anything there either, because I still can’t handle rejection adequately.
My track record has gotten a lot better over the years. I’m happy to report that I have been in a committed relationship with my husband since January 1, 2005, and I haven’t screwed it up yet. Woo!