You shouldn't expect from your ex to be your friend,
expectations are never met, a friend said at dinner.
I know how he felt.
Don't expect kindness, logic, equality, consistency, or any
kind of affection, I added, and drank tea.
What's that s'posed to mean, his friend asked.
What it says, I replied.
Dinner conversation was a lot like that.
Discussing the issue point blank, painfully.
A day of raw nerves, at least for me,
the problems blown up inproportionately
because I hadn't slept much.
Because I was never emotional normally, to spare
my dessicated friends,
the internal flood banked in suppressed me
in its ungiving nature and unwept state
And I wondered at my own expectations
Why was I so unhappy, so desperately
clutching onto the feeling I'd been smacked
down?
The futility of communicating with a person
who has no desire to know the whole--or
any--of the story
was the king of related factors.
For one full hour before dinner
I was the closest to breaking down in tears
I'd been in a long time.
CREATE YOUR OWN HAPPINESS. YOU
CAN'T EXPECT ANYTHING FROM ANYONE
BUT YOURSELF... so you might as well
do that, I said aloud.
No one looked at me. But I didn't
really want them to either.
I wanted to convince myself to reroute
my famous selfishness
in order to recreate my joy.
Logic and emotions had a skirmish,
but I just wanted to finish my dinner.