RESIGNED

I don’t fit the mold
I like the cold
I wish my life was sold
I feel too old
Like anytime I could fold.

“I really hope she isn’t holed in that room writing more poetry. Who will tell her she sucks?”

The walls in the apartment were paper thin and his voice reached her. She locked the door and barricaded it. The music was put on full blast and she snuggled deeper into the fort she had built. Took out another novel that she had received from the mail a week ago.He knocked on her door, shouted her name but he wasn’t let in. He shouldn’t have said that. He regretted his words but he couldn’t take them back. She hated him, he knew it and he wished he could turn back the clock.

“Reena, please let me in. I am sorry. I love you. Please let me in babe.” He did love her ; her brightly colored hair, her laugh, her smile, her thoughts, her speech, her love for things. He loved her for being herself, the fresh breath she was. His insecurities held him back from accepting her art.

“Reena, please. I said I’ll change. I said I won’t do it again. Reena, hear me out.” She turned off the music and pushed away the table that she had blocked the door with. He walked in and faced her. Her face was a blank canvas. He couldn’t create a masterpiece on it even if he used his most expensive brushes.
“Reena, I’m jealous. I am a man wrecked by life. The world didn’t accept my being and I wanted everyone else to feel like I did. I don’t deserve you neither do you deserve me…”

She had heard the speech before and mentally she was counting down the words until he said his closing statement. “I’ll get help Ree, for you for us.” He never lasted a day at therapy. He was not being understood, none of the twenty therapists he’d seen helped him. He couldn’t be heard, he was too loud.


Pete, you say that everytime and each time we get back here. My lousy poetry pays for this house and it feeds us. Pete, we cannot do this anymore. There’s a pamphlet on the kitchen counter ,a place in the country, get help. It’s the only straw left Pete, after this you are on your own.
Maybe it was the emptiness in her eyes or the flat tone she used. Maybe it was the way her clothes hang loosely on her body. Maybe it was because she looked tired. She had lost her spark. He had done that. He ruined her.

911! 911! Someone anyone get me help! Pete! Pete! Bloody fool! Pete!
She couldn’t recall anything that happened from the ambulance ride to the waiting room. She was numb. How could he do that to her? How could he? What was he thinking?

“Ma’am your husband is now stable. He is lucky the knife missed his major organs.”

She was jolted out of her numbness. That house on the hill, she would personally drive him there. He had to fight his demons, all of them and she would help him.