Feb. 27, 2019

The Deepest Of Cuts

From The Novelist Portent by Johnny E. Mahaffey (author's profile)

Transcription

The Novelist Portent
Johnny E. Mahaffey
February 20, 2019

THE DEEPEST OF CUTS
Composed February 12th

I sit and listen to Wife-X with nothing that I can
say or do
She carves away at my soul, not caring
if I live or die, giggling for his eye.

For so many years, she gave nothing—no word,
no photo, no visit. Nothing since she flew.
Location erased me from her vision, so therefore
I was no longer seen.

I am tired, at work without sleep,
about to pass out.
If I could have a permanent sleep? I could
be found to be considering it: no more pain.

My Ten—she's my dream girl—tells me
Never think of that again!
It is Ten's birthday today, she is 26
—I am 40—her mother thought me too old.

I was deemed unworthy of Ten—me?
I am called 56, my name since 1999.
She is the ex of all that to me
is most loving and kind.

Without Ten, I would already be dead,
burned to ash, and tossed aside.
Ten showed back up after many years
20, how or why, I cannot know

I do know that she has saved me. Wife-X
Says that she is my "friend," yet asked not of me,
never wrote of, or to, me: everything was about
what was there, in sight. I, she could not see.

Never to understand that I loved—true,
non-shallow, unquestioning love
Everyone at work asks me if I am okay! My
emotions on my sleeve... my want to leave the pain.

The deepest of cuts are those we cannot
see, but feel, deep down inside
of our soul—given by one we trusted,
one that built us up. Gaslighted again.

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