18 Lost cause

When I started this, I wondered if I’d have enough for twenty three days. Now I wonder how I’ll fit things in. So I think I’d better do this now.

And I also said I wouldn’t plan too much, and see where what I posted led. This path was completely unexpected, that I talked to him about you.

I put him on a pedestal all those years, and when I finally shoved him off, and talked to him, the real him, we could talk about our imperfections and our losses. So when I told him about the restraining order, he didn’t flinch, he just told me stories from his life to make me feel better.

You and I know it was about compersion, anyway, and not the bullshit made up for the judge. And that it flowed from the hiding, and that I’d finally told you no, that I was putting myself and my safety, and her safety, ahead of your penchant for lies of both omission and commission.

That you accepted my polyamory from the beginning was never a question. But despite my best efforts, that you knew what it was really all about is entirely debatable.

Twenty one years. Twenty one years where you never needed to cheat, lie, or steal. And yet you did. Whether it was your broken brain, broken family, bad habits, or too much weed, who knows. That he has a broken brain now, too, and I was able to talk to someone who understands, somehow makes you easier to grieve.

I loved you utterly in spite of it all. And I gave up loving others, mostly, because you were incapable of doing it right. I did it willingly, for you.

This is the acoustic version, remembering that road trip to Salt Lake for the concert. The blue green meteor strike in the middle of the dark Utah night. You looking up at the Milky Way and realizing where we are on a spiral arm for the first time.

I don’t have an off switch. But I know you’re a lost cause.