the photograph

Looking at it now, It wasn’t his arms around her or his fingers entangled with hers, it was the way he smiled down at her like he had his whole life right there in his arms. Eyes entwined together as she looked up at him and in exchange his eyes smiled down to her. A moment captured that would take a lifetime to express in words. There’s no denying it wasn’t there, there’s no hoping it would ever go away, there’s no escaping the obvious. It was  all there...in his smile.
    To you his vocal cords rung out a million vibrations of lies. The smiles he gave you were fake as the face on a painted clown in comparison. yet you still held onto the belief that everything was ok because he held you, because he kissed you, and because he said you were his. Lost in a world of candy land make-believe you stayed; because the illusion of sugar coated sweetness was much better than the bitter stale sour taste of reality.
    You believe everything is perfect because you want it to be and for you part of it even is. But piece by piece you learn how deceived you really are by the moss curtain that lies over your heart. The little things he says make more sense and sting much more. You can survive one hornet every now and then but a swarm of bees threatens your survival. Yet sting after sting you just keep stabbing yourself with an epi-pen and ice the swelling. You want it meaningful, you want it truthful and real, yet the longer you try to make yourself believe it is the more truth you start to see yourself, then the more you realize it’s not him...it’s you.
    When his eyes close it’s not you he sees, you have become the bitter reminder when his eyes open that life has changed. When he hugs you his arms extend just a bit as if to imagine she was there in your place...it just makes you hold on tighter.  He fears nothing from you yet you fear everything from him. The little smart remarks he makes when he says he’s only teasing, you can’t help but wonder sometimes if he really means them or not. He says you’re meaningless, stupid, annoying, and ugly and laughs about it like it’s a game. You brush it off, smile, and giggle along not to make a scene but inside you can’t help but wonder. Maybe it is all just a game. Maybe you are just a toy. Simply just a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy that if you’re lucky makes it to the car and then gets lost in the chaotic mess in the backseat just to be thrown away when the car is vacuumed or better yet  left in the driveway for the dog to find and snack on later.
    You live his footsteps as if they were your own. She would never have done an eighth of the things you do for him yet does it matter? No. You try your best to prove that you are the better person... you care for him in more ways than he knows, you want what’s best for him even if that means being eliminated, you love him more than you should, but none if it matters. No matter what you do for him, no matter what you say to him, how you hold him when he’s upset, understand and accept the problems in his life, no matter how you support everything he strives for and how you do everything in your power to help him along his way, you are still just second best. Even he wont deny what’s still there in his heart.
    You look at him and want him to be yours, you hear his voice and want to hear your name, you want to see that smile. But none of that even matters because you love him. You shouldn’t, but you do. You don’t say it because you know he doesn’t feel the same way. You don’t want to tell him and put more pressure on him or cause more confusion in his life. You don’t want to scare him away. Every night you lie down beside him and put your arms around him and every night you fight with every muscle in your throat against your larynx not to release those words. He rolls over and kisses you goodnight and every muscle in your body wants to whisper the words “I love you.”But you don’t. You hold your breath and count to ten, you bite your lip till it’s numb and tingly, or pinch your side till it breaks the skin,  anything to keep quite. You want him to know but you want him to feel the same about you. Keeping quiet is the easy part compared to saying something and being shut down. You want him to love you too. Yet how can he ever even begin to grow to love you if he hasn’t stopped loving her. The truth is, he can’t. The truth is you aren’t more than nothing. You’re simply an old easy to defeat video game that’s played to pass the time and occupy the boredom. But still to you...it’s better than nothing.
    He says he has more things to worry about and you know that your presence there or not is not of his concern. If you left it would be more of an inconvenience in his life than anything more. You know he’s worried about her. You know she’s what’s on his mind. Her thoughts , her actions, and her feelings matter more to him than anything you do. He worries like they’re still together. Sometimes you wonder if you’re simply in an arrangement in a business transaction than a relationship. All you want is for him to tell you you’re beautiful, that he’s happy to be with you, that you’re the part of his life he’s happy with...but he wont. Then again, maybe you’re not.