Clearly I wasn't in my happy place when I wrote this last night but it seems interesting to me this morning so I'll share it. It came out as a sort of stream of consciousness thing and it's posted as it came out of my head.

The Final Disappointment

There was a romantic weekend, a getaway, an escape into romance and love and passion. It was a weekend in the mountains or at the ocean or in the city; two days and two nights in which all their needs were met. They made love and talked until dawn. Everything was perfect.

It seems there’s a sad truth we’re all destined to live through and repeat and pass to our children like an heirloom passed from their ancestors. It’s the final disappointment and nobody is spared.

He grew up to be a man, taught to be confident and have the answers and not to cry or show weakness. She kept a diary and dreamed of a savior, prince charming, a man for all occasions. He hoped for erotic sensuality and an embrace without words. She longed to lie face to face, basking in a lovers gaze, held close, and to disclose everything.

That their needs and desires were diametrically opposed was not the problem. It’s that they were not equipped to meet them half way.

Aching and tired and broke he comes home and he slumps on the couch, exhausted and lost. The kids are screaming and would he please do more to help with them? Dinner is burning and hey, she works too. And the division of labor, not equal or just, grows a poisonous flower, where something was always destined to grow.

He kisses her neck, pressed against her back that faces him like a brick wall beneath the covers. She’s not awake but she’s not really sleeping. Sometimes the barrier brakes but usually it doesn’t.

She sits with a glass of wine and stares at the darkness, out a window like prison bars from a bed like a tomb. Where is the sharing she’d always been craving and where is the love he so desperately needs?

All men are pigs and women hate sex. He’s an unfeeling %#@&#! and she’s just a *****.

And from a hot spring of resentment and frustration and hate, they yell at each other about money and chores. He escapes to pornography. She reads books on self help. He sulks at the tv and she cries at the sink.

And they both remember that weekend of romance and passion and two days of perfection that they cling to in dreams.

She’s never been appreciated.

He’s never been loved.

And they both die alone, locked in an ice cold embrace.