I had expected, when we married,
That Phil would want to hug me through the night.
We married in June and had no air conditioning.
He didn’t want to hug me—he wanted to try to cool off!
But he did want to hug Chloe the dog,
Saying something about “fur is not the same as hair”—
Apparently, my hair tickled.
This was one of those hurtful newlywed things
That we needed to figure out.
Looking back, I can see that if I need to be perfect,
This was a sign of imperfection,
And if I need to be needed, and I wasn’t needed,
This was a sign of superfluity.
And if Phil needed to avoid pain,
Tickling hair and a (literally) hot body
Was something to be avoided, not (literally) embraced.
We were both operating out of our deepest needs,
And those needs worked at cross-purposes.
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