Those Three Words

The three words that can bring such joy, and such unbelievable heartache.

I remember the first time I said it…..

I remember the words clearly

I attempted them.

Evaluating, distinguishing them experimentally,

Trying them on to see if they quite fit….

Appreciating that they felt new and exciting.

I love you.

 

I remember the second time I said it….

I remember the words clearly

I exclaimed them.

Embracing, admiring them genuinely.

Trusting in their perseverance and poetry.

Acknowledging the flight my heart took when echoed back.

I love you.

 

I remember the six hundredth or so time I said it…

I remember the words clearly

I declared them.

Affirming, professing them assuredly

Avowing my devotion before God and our friends.

Beginning a new life together with such hope and promise.

I love you.

 

I remember the many many-eth time I said it….

I remember the words clearly

I sing-songed them.

Unfaltering, trusting them effortlessly

Undoubting that the man I knew mirrored my tranquility.

Thirsting for continued easiness and complaisance.

I love you.

 

I remember the next time I said it….

I remember the words clearly

I shouted them.

Anguishing, tormenting in them, forsakenly

Shaking both viscerally and in my belief of anything.

Witnessing helplessly as my world fragmented and imploded.

I love you.

 

I remember the next times I said it…

I remember the words clearly

I disputed them.

Revealing, considering, on rented couch distractedly

Hoping that to share my confusion could somehow fix us.

Vacillating between anger, vulnerability, and culpability.

I love you.

 

I remember the seems-like-millionth time I said it….

I remember the words clearly

I sculpted them.

Reframing, reformulating expectations and commitments

Attempting to reinvent everything I was so sure of.

Impeding the sardonic intuitive foreboding.

I love you.

 

I remember the last time I said it….

I remember the words clearly

I mouthed them.

Whispering, hinting in the darkness alone

Anguishing for one moment I could feel they had truth.

Yearning for the days when these words were happy words.

I love you.

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think....heavily edited January 2015

Reviews

[Yuppitsme]

I wrote this after catching my husband having internet and phone affairs with other women. We are trying to save our relationship, and I hope that we can. The difficulties surrounding the amount of intimacy possible without actually touching another person....