Bitter Tears

 I told my daughter's father tonight, via phone, that we were moving to Ohio, and he started cracking jokes about taking my dead plants and who had to move my tons of books, as tears slid silently down my face. 

My fault, for fucking someone I barely knew to get over someone else. 

My fault, for wishing that he cared enough to even try when he so clearly doesn't. 

My fault, for letting emotions get in the way, for the little thrill that went through me when he said my name.   We've been "together" or whatever you want to call it for over a year, and this is the first time he's said my name.  I wasn't even really sure he knew it.

My fault, for breaking apart a little every time he says "my daughter" and means the real daughter, with his ex-wife, the one he acknowledges. 

And so I sit here on my couch, and watch my daughter sleep, and I mourn for the daddy that she'll never have and the hole in her life that I can't fix and it's killing me and there's nothing I can do about it. Every time I think that I'm as hurt as I'm going to be and surely it'll start getting better, it gets worse. and I am just so tired and heart-sore. And maybe one day, I'll be able to look at a father and daughter or read about a happy family and not be engulfed by a wave of agony for what will never be that damn near brings me to my knees. At this point, I don't even know which I hurt for the most - that he can walk away from her so easily, or from me. But I wish, oh how I wish, that I wasn't so easy to leave. And gods, I hope this scabs over quickly because I don't know how much more I can take.