The curse of infidelity
mailto:asullivan00@comcast.net
I don't know how the seeds of infidelity start in someone's head, or what makes them grow despite thousands of good intentions. Maybe they were there inside me the whole time, waiting for a moment of neglect and loneliness in which to bloom. I certainly never intended for there to be anyone but you in my life, at least not in the beginning when I was passing through.
This man wanted only one man in his life and that was you.
But for all my attention and so called wisdom and experience, I faltered, as your attention went elsewhere to business or art.
Your life has always been stocked full with issues that needed resolving, and maybe I've always felt on the outside of those resolutions, a secondary matter to do you came home and loved after all the primary issues had been settled.
I think I want to be the center of someone's attention if only one night.
Maybe I knew the danger even then and that's why I vowed to myself to keep it simple and not let it get to the way it was before I had two of my life.
Just one, I told myself.
But was like eating one piece of chocolate or having one sip of wine. Once I had the tasted variety again, I couldn't stop. There they're always seemed to be a sweeter face to pursue them before I knew it I'd racked up the string of lovers each one of whom bore piece of me away from you. If only for a time.
I always came back to you, crawling back a perpetual prodigal son, full of the same promise of repentance they would never happen again, full of the same vows that I could never wander again and again. But I wandered only to come back again there was always new lovers and new confessions, and you for giving me over each saying: I understand.
Stupid faggot!
You know more understood then I did what it meant. We both presumed you would always be there, receiving the back after each transgression, father, brother, lover, host. We both accepted these routine interruptions in our lives as part of the curse of infidelity.
And maybe when I found out about myself, I should also have known about you. But I dared hope my sin didn't stain you, too. That's why I said nothing. That's why I suddenly created distance between us, not because they didn't love you, but because I loved you too much.
It was a mistake.
I should have known you were more vulnerable than me. You'd always been the more sensitive on things of importance, and the more susceptible. But who could have guessed you would fade faster than me, that it would be me on this side of the equation, waiting, watching, praying even, for you to play the prodigal son and return out of death to me.