An Open Letter to Our Confessors

Please stop taking your smart phones into the confessional with you. Please stop scrolling through your prayers while your penitents attempt to confess their sins. We understand that the phone serves…

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Her Lies Were Everywhere

by Tommy Paley

Her lies were everywhere

They hadn’t always been

But they were now

In the air between us, everywhere

All around

Like scattered pieces from an old jigsaw puzzle that your aunt got you for Christmas and that would never be solved

Like the remnants of a once proud balloon before it was viciously popped by a young child who tired of its existence

Like my heart

(Not to mention my collection of novelty balloons)

Eviscerated and pierced and ventilated in a million spots in a million ways

Like Swiss cheese

Or an old t-shirt

By her

This beacon-like woman whom I was mystically drawn to

A light in my darkness

Loving me when I had felt so alone, for so long

Holding my hand when it looked like no one would

Comforting me, embracing me

Showing me the way, leading me down the path

Back in those early days, when we were new

Before those lies

Her lies were everywhere.

Her lies were everywhere

But not in the beginning

So funny, so smart and

So attractive that it hurt

Willingly wound around her little finger

Was I

Like a kite on a string

Or a mitten on sleeve

I was sucked into her eddy

Pulled into her orbit

By her charm, her smile

And I thought it was gravity

She was my first love

And I’d hoped would be my last

Wanting to believe the tales she spun, the stories she wove, the intricate details of her yarns that almost passed the smell test

And yet didn’t

It was easy to be tricked

Especially when a part of me needed her, wanted her

So desperately

As if she was the air I needed to breathe

But

Her lies were everywhere.

Her lies were everywhere

Dangerously and addictively so

I was young and naive

And I had drunk the Kool-Aid, knowingly, willingly, repeatedly

Damn it was delicious and sinful and constantly pushing me to the brink of a diabetic coma

But, it hasn’t always been that way

No, it had all started innocently enough

We felt feelings — like normal people do — and were in something closely resembling love

A pair, a team, a two-link chain

Espousing ideals of honesty and trust and healthy co-dependence

Rubbing it in the collective faces of everyone who saw us

Parading around town like we were the dictionary definition of something grand

Nothing could tarnish us

We could fly close to the sun, wings intact

And I was so helplessly into her, us

Blind

I didn’t notice the tides shifting, the writing on the wall, the tea leaves being arranged just so

(not to mention all of the loose tea leaves she was buying)

Her pulling away, slightly, almost unnoticeably and undetected, at first

Her distance grew

First came the questions

Then the excuses

And then, the lies

Harmless and playful, at first

Like part of a game

(and I do love games)

Until the floodgates opened and it became hard to know what was real and was part of her fiction

But, despite it all, I didn’t leave

I didn’t run

I didn’t question

Because I craved it all like an addict

Refusing to see that

Her lies were everywhere.

Her lies were everywhere

Sexy and seductive

And all over her, like invisible tattoos

On her shoulders and on her hips and on the various body parts that connected her shoulders to her hips

(I never took biology in school)

On her lips and in her eyes and in her tears

That dripped, slowly, from those beautiful eyes, almost like they were looking around first to see if I was paying attention

I was

I couldn’t look away, like I was viewing a car crash in slow motion

Glued to the screen

Those lips and those tears

Some days, they were all I could see

All I wanted to see

And I wanted to save her, to save us

To make her happy

To be with her

For today and for always

Allowing myself to dream and plan and vocalize a future together

Despite her hesitation

Avoiding the subject of us

What we were doing and where we were going and what all of this was

But forces were

Weighing me down

Pushing me under

Threatening to engulf me

Every inch (or centimeter, when in a Commonwealth country) of me was submerged

Her lies were everywhere.

Her lies were everywhere

Initially she seemed to good to be true, like a mirage or a prank

(all human females interested in me were first believed to be mirages or pranks)

All was quiet on all fronts

I lapsed into a state of calm

No need to worry here

I didn’t notice the tides shifting

Her pulling away, slightly

Her drifting away, slowly

Her looking elsewhere

And then, the lies

They attacked me from all angles

I couldn’t move

Her claws gripped tightly into my flesh

Like a helpless fly caught in her net

I felt weak, drained, sapped

This, whatever it was, that this was, was on life support

Despite my conviction that it wasn’t

The cracks showing in our foundation

Seen by all around me

But not me

The lies they were

Spreading like a disease or a virus like when that one kid gets sent to school with Chicken Pox because his parents are renegades

They presided on the bed, on the couch and in all of the spaces we shared that were neither beds nor couches

They were inside the books that sat, innocently, on the shelves

And in the pots and pans where we cooked food together

(As even couples on the ropes must eat)

They burrowed deep into my flesh, my bones, my soul

Like termites or moles or really annoying friends who insist on digging holes in your backyard even when repeatedly asked to stop

And then, one day, it was too much

The bough, which seemed so strong, finally broke

It was over

It ended

I was sad and free, but mostly sad

And free from her

Which, as the days turned to weeks and the week turned to months, was a good thing

Because

Her lies were everywhere

And now they weren’t.

An Open Letter to Our Confessors

Her Lies Were Everywhere

by Tommy Paley

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