By Anonymous
It was a feeling I recognized. I knew it had a name.
The despair.
Paralyzed.
Different circumstances; but the emotions — the same.
My eyes, strained with tears pushed aside
walking in a circle and it is me who cries,
“How could this happen?!” You, whose heart was my home,
I beseech you to fix and to heal, to bequeath what I am owed.
Because wasn’t it more than a marriage, of me and you
of God and the Jews
In holy matrimony, a sacred union under numerous stars,
God and our ancestors. It was a promise not just said but fulfilled
a life of higher purpose that we were obliged to continue to build.
Except a part of us died that day when there was a security breach
the fence trampled down
the dusty earth writhing in defeat.
No one saw it coming,
so I thought.
Slaughter shrouded in deceit.
Tear stained
blood soaked
fire and lies
selling your soul at the cost of peace, inching toward its demise.
Escape, depart, run away from it all. But to where?
Where shall I go
when my house is no longer my home?
Dimming lights surround me and only get darker
Where, exactly, am I supposed to go now
as a Jew
as a Jewish addict’s partner?
Desperately unearthing ashes with my hands
I find a memory, translucent, from when we began
with distilled wishes from all of us, young and bright
now scattered
and shattered
and torn
blinded by lack of light.
Seemingly damaged beyond repair
Quiet evidence of a struggle — a soul, poached by a snare
Affirming you were not born a monster,
but after this, why do I still care?
Desperate to search for the cause of the pain
I become lost in the stories of who is to blame
To make sense of the reasons and try to explain
The coerced retribution, burdened to clear our name.
How can you stay? They ask. And whisper behind your back.
What kind of person is she?
What kind of monster is he?
Who would uphold a space terrorized by these
people consumed by self-hate and pity?
I steal a glance at our conjoined history
I feel the heartbeats of our noble ancestry
and now, raw from my own sobriety,
realizing I can’t walk away if I tried
it’s because of them that I am alive
and not dead, undead or dead inside.
Borders on boundaries on fences we needed
adding new layers to tensions pre heated
the distance thickened with each wave you greeted
they say all is fair in love and war
but how can that be when you cheated?
Who could foretell that this conflict would constitute
an emotional delinquent’s response via prostitute?
hoarding conflicts to reveal contention
just to meet the devil for divine redemption
scorched souls then call to the heavens to rain,
but scream instead
that everyone’s addicted to something that takes away the pain.
The war we fight
a continuous, belligerent journey of biblical proportions
against romanticized, weaponized, idealistic distortions
of what “should be.”
The war we fight
to emancipate the inner slave, forever stuck in a mental enclave
of tunnels hijacking soulful predictions
our minds numb from all the renditions
of how things were “supposed to be.”
Now armed with persistence
to justify our existence
How can I forsake thee
on our once promised land?
In this war we fight.