Mary Jane is a B***h

Maybe we'd have been great friends if we'd met under different circumstances. 
But we didn't. 

Mary Jane was the other woman. And it was every night., I'd drive away from him; knowing he'd go to her for comfort, camaraderie, solace; for company. And night after night; tear after tear; moment after moment my thoughts came back to this horrible concept: Why aren't I enough?
I had to wonder why. Why did he Mary Jane to be happier? It got to the point where I couldn't enjoy a nice day together because I knew at the end of it he'd go back to her. The drive home was always helpful. A welcome distraction from thinking about it. But alone, sitting in my room; that's what caged me.

I'm trying to remember what I thought of the scent before all of this happened. Some people think its pungent musk smells good. To them it smelled like freedom. To someone I knew, it smelled like friendship and identity.To me, all it smells like is failure. 

The leaves were tiny. I thought so anyway. Several clumps of them fit in the palm of my hand. So fragile. That always struck me. More than anything else about them. Crumbled almost as easily as dried mint leaves. I held them in my hand tentatively. Like I was holding some hedgehog; waiting for an attack.

I didn't even really have a specific preference to be there. To be putting myself through this. It was all in a desperate attempt. I needed to know. Or at least maybe even understand. To glean any information to ease my troubled mind. To fix the tear in a relationship that would inevitably be ripped apart. I wonder if I would've tried if I'd known that. 
I can't remember how I felt about it then. I try to relay unbiased memories. But it's so hard. Maybe marijuana and I got off on the wrong foot. Who knows? 

And maybe it's a silly thing to ponder. But trapped with the putrid downward spiral of realization. Where I'd wait for him to be back to normal. Back to the person I fell for. And the moments passed so tortuously slowly. I'd watch the clock in anguish as if it were Father Time himself; forcing his disheveled body through a field of broken glass. And every minute I was bleeding. His choices draining me of my dignity and concept of self worth.

And though I loved him; I hated him for doing this to me. Everyday I fought him and her; both of them ganging up against me.I don't want to make him seem unthoughtful either. At least he tried. He hugged and assured me. He compromised and held me as I sobbed over the injustice of it all. She did nothing. She let everything happen; lacking the decency to see that she was destroying bonds; destroying trust. She looked on indifferently as she helped destroy love, and all that went into it. 

Tomorrow is April 20th. It's her birthday. I will look on in disgust as people celebrate the force that decimated my first tender foray into love. I will scorn while others cheer. Had I known then what hindsight's granted me; I would've held those little clumps, those pieces of her, very differently. With anger, malice, and respect. They were so tiny to do so much damage. It took me months to see, but ultimately; she won.

I lost to a plant. 

Sometimes the shock still gets to me; even a year later. I should have closed my hand violently, crumbling that herb. I should have only opened it again when the leaves were a fine dust; so to watch as I let it blow away in the wind. Just to show her a fraction of what she did to me.

Reviews

i can relate to this. i had a similar relationship where it seemed to be a competition between me and mj. nice job taking the reader through the struggle.