The Kiss – FFT

She lay there in bed with her back facing her husband. She listened to his breathing, and snoring, for most of the night. She was wide awake, as she had found herself most nights lately. If it wasn’t the sound of her husband’s breathing, it was the sound of the cars outside her window. She always found something hypnotizing in the way tires met wet pavement; it always brings her back to “home.”

She knows lately this house, this marriage, wasn’t her “home.” Her heart didn’t reside here anymore. She couldn’t even be sure that her heart has been in it all along. She can now understand how people question themselves, “how did I get to this point?” She has felt like the last ten years of her life have been a blur. It’s nights like tonight, deep in wonder, she always finds herself back at this place. She thinks of the things she’s missing in her life, and counts them like counting sheep. She misses kissing. She misses cuddling and holding hands. She misses intimacy and sexual attraction. These are all things that have been absent in their marriage.

She ponders these thoughts over and over like a person with OCD; counting the steps 1234, 4321. She found herself with anxiety over how to get out, how to move on. She was terrified of speaking up again, afraid of being guilted back into their marriage. She was tired of hearing all his reason for her to stay, and him failing to see all her reasons not too. How can there be love without passion? How can there be a life without attraction? All of her frustrations are turning into resentment, and he’s too passive to see it. She cannot give the rest of her life to a man who provides nothing in return.

“I work for you. I provide for you.” was always the retort she heard. He’s failing to see that this wasn’t the life they both deserved. He’s convinced himself he’s happy in every aspect of the marriage, she knows this just cannot be the reality. She is winding herself tight mentally, and she’s feeling it physically. She huffed, rolled onto her other side, fluffed her pillows and sighed into position. She faced the back of his head, and anger shot through her. She felt caged; kept.

“Where do I go from here?” she cried quietly to sleep.