Miscommunication

She used to look at me
like I was the one who could save her,
I used to look back
like she had food stuck in her teeth.
Our shared pains overflowed into everything we did
until we were no longer useful to one another.
She screamed at me one night,
after she realized I can barely balance a checkbook -
saving her would be too far out of the question,
yelling until I couldn’t hear anything but buzzing.
Yelling that I was the whole problem
and she didn’t have to put up with me,
despite what I would tell her.
She told my friends that she hated me,
they told me we should work it out.
They finally won.
It was hard going back to her,
what with her being so unhappy
and me not really caring.
It was fine, for a few months.
We would stare out the window together,
watching the morning commute begin
and waiting for our turn.
It became an integral part of my life,
this waiting.
I thought it defined me as a human being -
the endless wait for something better.
I thought we had found something better.
I thought it was her
she thought it was someone else.
My friends said to stick it out.
“Maybe things will work out,”
they told me.
I grew more miserable
and she grew more out of love with me.
So now I’m sitting here
gun in one hand,
her body in the other,
and a little voice inside
reassures me:
when the cops arrive,
everything will work out.