Marriage

[MARIA T AYALA]

"You are almost home,

get down

on your knees and kiss

the grit and sand of Ithaca."

Just beautiful

Two voices

One destination

[MC]

This is a needed reminder.......deep gratitude.

[Sarah Elizabeth Erwin]

Medea

~

I am not going to ask you to forgive me.

~

That is the first thing

you need to understand.

~

Forgiveness is a comfort

for the one who did not have to choose.

~

I chose.

~

And before you decide

what that makes me —

~

you should know

what was removed.

~

Not love.

~

Love goes first.

Easily.

~

It burns bright

and dies

without instruction.

~

What remains

is structure.

~

Position.

~

Name.

~

I built his future

with my own hands.

~

Not metaphor.

~

Not devotion.

~

Hands.

~

I left my father.

My country.

My language.

~

I did things

you would not name

if you wanted to keep

your world intact.

~

For him.

~

That is the part

they call magic.

~

As if calling it that

makes it less exact.

~

He took it.

~

All of it.

~

And then —

~

he stepped into a room

I could not enter.

~

Not because I was unworthy.

~

Because I was no longer useful.

~

There is a difference.

~

You think the break

is the betrayal.

~

It isn't.

~

Men leave.

~

Men reattach themselves

to easier structures

all the time.

~

The break

is the realization

~

that nothing I had done

would follow him there.

~

Not the risk.

Not the cost.

Not the blood.

~

He would become

what I made possible

~

without me.

~

And I —

~

I would become

what he could step away from.

~

That is where

you would have me stop.

~

Grieve.

Weep.

Become smaller

so the story can close.

~

But you misunderstand

what was built in me.

~

I do not reduce.

~

I resolve.

~

And when I understood

there was no place left

for me

inside the structure

I had helped create —

~

I removed

the structure.

~

Not in anger.

~

Do not give me that.

~

Anger is quick.

This was not quick.

~

This was precise.

~

You want the children

to be the question.

~

They are not.

~

They are the answer.

~

The only thing

that could not be absorbed

into his future

without me.

~

The only thing

that would remain

untouched by him

if I did nothing.

~

I did not act

to hurt him.

~

I acted

to ensure

there would be nothing left

of me

that he could use.

~

That is not madness.

~

That is completion.

~

And if you are waiting

for me

to say I regret it —

~

you will wait

as long

as I did.

~

Because regret

is for those

who believe

there was another way

to remain whole.

~

There wasn't.

~

Jason

~

I did not deceive her.

~

That is the first thing

you should understand.

~

Nothing I asked for

was hidden.

~

Nothing I accepted

was forced.

~

She chose me.

~

Do not remove that

because it makes you uncomfortable.

~

She saw what I was

before I became it.

~

Ambition is not subtle.

~

Need is not quiet.

~

I required movement.

~

Position.

~

A future

that did not yet exist.

~

And she —

~

she had access

to things I did not.

~

Knowledge.

~

Means.

~

A willingness

to act

where others hesitate.

~

We recognized that

in each other.

~

That is not exploitation.

~

That is alignment.

~

You call it love

if you need to soften it.

~

I did not.

~

I called it

what it was.

~

Necessary.

~

And it worked.

~

Everything you know of me

comes from that period.

~

Every door that opened.

~

Every name that followed mine.

~

Every structure

I now stand inside.

~

We built that.

~

Together.

~

Do not rewrite it

so you can assign

clean blame.

~

She left with me.

~

She acted with me.

~

She benefited

as I did.

~

Until —

~

it became clear

that what we had built

required a different shape

to continue.

~

This is where

you begin to judge.

~

Because you prefer

consistency

to outcome.

~

I do not.

~

A man in my position

does not have that luxury.

~

Stability requires

recognition.

~

Recognition requires

association.

~

Association requires

legitimacy.

~

She could not provide that.

~

Not anymore.

~

Not in the world

we had entered.

~

You think this is about

feeling.

~

It isn't.

~

It is about continuity.

~

About ensuring

that what was built

does not collapse

because of its origins.

~

I did not discard her.

~

I adapted.

~

There is a difference.

~

I offered her

what could be offered.

~

Protection.

~

Provision.

~

Distance

from the consequences

that were already forming

around her actions.

~

She did not want that.

~

She wanted equivalence.

~

That was never

possible.

~

Not because I decided it.

~

Because the structure

would not hold it.

~

You can call that

unfair.

~

It changes nothing.

~

I moved

where the structure allowed.

~

She refused

to move at all.

~

That is where

we separated.

~

Not in betrayal.

~

In divergence.

~

And what she did after —

~

you want me

to account for that.

~

To fold it back

into my decision

as if it was inevitable.

~

It wasn't.

~

There were other ways

for her to exist.

~

She rejected them.

~

Do not assign

her choices

to me.

~

I did not create

what she became.

~

I created

what I am.

~

And I stand inside it.

~

Fully.

~

Without apology.

~

Because if you are asking me

whether I would undo it —

~

whether I would return

to what I was

before her —

~

the answer is no.

~

Not because she was nothing.

~

Because she was

part of something

that had to end

for this

to continue.

~

[Susan Storms]

ah Ithaca! Beautiful

[Marjan N.]

T H A N K Y O U ♥️

[Jennifer Johnson]

Thought provoking. Haunting. True.

[Sarah Elizabeth Erwin]

i do this as well. i have Medea and Jason, and many others. Medea and Jason is perhaps my favourite. there was so much to play with...

[Dagmara Fraczek]

Thank you so much. It touches my heart❤️again.