Mark's Pages

January 15, 2005:

Same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old.

You do something she disapproves of. Doesn't matter that it might be important. Doesn't matter: she disapproves, and so the ritual plays in the same sad old tired way, the withholding of affection as punishment, where "affection" does mean affection not sex, to be restored only on condition of suffering, after ten ounces of flesh have been extracted for each perceived ounce lost, after you've been made to pay until the penance is complete, until you're reduced to emotional exhaustion, incapable of paying more.

Once upon a time she asked in good faith, "Why'd we break up?" You told her it was because the permanent ups and downs had frayed you so badly that you were in fear of breakdown. It's possible she misinterpreted your meaning to refer to her mood swings. You didn't mean that. You meant this all-the-time cycle of granting-and-withholding love, where affection is like a reward doled out to an animal trained Pavlovian-style via positive and negative stimuli. Yet where the rules of training are inconsistent, shifting, so that as the animal being trained you never know whether there's going to be reward at any particular moment or cruel punishment, like children of abusive parents growing into schizophrenia.

Tall fellow walks the cliffs alone. He's a boy on a warm cliff; he's a man on a cold one. There's a storm: the clouds are angry-gray. Like him: he's angry-gray. As a boy he fought-back tears, as a man he's comfortable with them. At neither time does he understand why it has to be so hard. That someone can love you so much and yet treat you so badly. He's saying to himself, "I know she does love me." Of course he knows: she's generous when she approves. It's the times like this that are murder.