Below the Waterline

Most days, we don’t speak, and I’m okay with that.
You get ready in steady silence as I lie in bed for another twenty minutes. Sometimes I’m awake and I hear you move about in the bathroom.

You sigh. Loudly.

That’s the thing, the sigh. The undertone of it is so strong. It isn’t relief, or exhaustion, or sadness.

It’s annoyance.
It’s anger.

And I know that I don’t know.

I don’t know the reasons behind the sighs, any of them, including this one. I just know that any sign of my existence from that moment on
might be,
could be,
hostile.

I try my best to cancel my alarm two minutes before it goes off, so as not to disturb you, or even remind you of my presence.

Nothing is wrong, at least not on my end. But for you, there is.

It’s hidden on the tip of your tongue and behind your teeth.
It’s hidden in the way you slam the bathroom door a little harder than necessary
and within me,
It’s hidden in plain sight, as I hold back a question I really need an answer to

And the answer, needs to come from you.
I just need to know…

If you can pick up the kids from school.

there it is and suddenly I am no longer hidden because the silence will end, and I will enter. That alone will bring out what I fear most.

You.

And now I am suddenly there.

I wish you could know that I like being unseen in your presence.
I prefer it, actually.

To be alone even when we are together.

And this time. in the morning. when I ask my question, I don’t know how that anger is going to show up, what it will look like, what form it will take, or the type of bruise it will leave.

Or worse, the scar that will form long after it is all said and done.

I have no choice, though.

In this moment, I have a question, one that only you can answer, and I need to ask it now.

Bravery doesn’t apply here.
Courage isn’t something I can build anymore.
Whatever I had for that has already been spent.

And so I hold my breath.
hold…
hold…
hold…
I hold it a bit longer than my body can handle so I can prepare, in my own small way, for what is to come.

Because out of all of the possibilities of this next moment, I know one thing for certain, it will end in fear.

And it would be nice, if only for one moment, if you could find yourself in the rising well of my tears. The ones that exist only because of you

and see yourself through them,
trying to stay afloat as they rise,
finally witnessing the danger I am always in


when I am with you.