Flecked across the page, the doorway of my heart, wide bands of color from a horsetail brush, a blade, an inkpen. It’s so easy to be hurt. So easy to withhold even the smallest scrap of willingness to travel on, past the point where words were slung about with careless grandeur. Past where the hurt started, reasonably or not.
I can see my shadow here: my ego eclipsing my own generous spirit. But this is what marriage is, isn’t it? To be shown again and again what we fear to look at the most in ourselves. So easy to call it out, to place the placard of blame on the other standing there, shoulders hunched forward, defensive and yelling. So hard to breathe out, and accept how very small our goodness is, when we’re backed against a wall. To say something, anything, that reaches out like a white flag or a bowl full of alms.