(B) “IN THE YEARS OF NO MOONS”

Excerpts from the diary of Winnie Ray (2004 to 2007)


Once, there was a man.
I knew him.
Or at least I think I did


He taught me compassion
He taught me love
He taught me the pain of a broken heart.


Somewhere down the line
We stopped loving each other
It was so unlike us


How are we not ourselves?
It’s like our lives got lost
And we haven’t located us yet


Our life was what passed us by
When we were busy making other plans
And what happened to the love that we once knew….


It’s been so long…..
Since we took the time
Since we looked at each other
Since we held hands
Since we really conversed
Since we made love


Although love is the most irrational phenomenon of all
He doesn’t love me anymore
I can see it in his eyes


His eyes are distant
The man that once used to make me laugh
Has become poignant


And on rare occasions when I speak to him
It’s like I’m speaking to a stranger
I hate
His inscrutable silences


Our love has faded
And we’ve become like those couples
We swore we’ll never emulate


It’s like a constantly ticking time bomb
How will the sadness come and when?
We fought again on Thursday
Over the sensitive topic of asparagus, no, my career


Often when I trace the sources of our fights
I laugh in retrospect
Our reasons are so shallow, like excuses


Sometimes, in the early days of our marriage
After every argument and strife
When I refused to speak to him for days
He wrote an apologetic letter to me
And despite the nullity of his writing talent,
I admired his attempt
For he admitted to missing his wife
Not many would
But then slowly
The letters stopped


Anger and hurt and intolerable pain
Pain, pain- be gone
You shall have no more of me
I strongly feel we both deserve better
And often I wonder if we should just fall apart


But then I look at Ronnie’s angelic face
And I think I would put up
With any torture in the world
To just be there for all the moments
In the life of my little girl


Can you take me back where I came from, can you take me back?
Cry baby cry, make your mother sigh
She’s old enough to know better


Someone could take a picture of the three of us
Him and me
And the society in between


Nervous about meeting J that night
Decked up in my avant garde make up
And my diva clothes
I felt as if I were in a Fellini film


When suddenly, he walked in
His silence lurked dangerously
Like a robber in the dark


And then he spoke the words I had for long expected
With Beckett’s devastating economy
And then he left
And I was left