Word Count: 263
You look at me differently though you say no, that’s not true. And I don’t have the courage to push it.
Ten years between twenty and thirty is nothing. I was a woman compared to the girls you’d been with. You were mature for your age. I asked if you’d still love me at sixty, seventy. You admitted that maybe when I was one hundred you might be tempted to look for a younger replacement. We laughed. You convinced me it was all going to work out fine.
Oh how I want to believe but there’s a shortness to your patience, an annoyance that’s replaced your amusement. Is that the years spent together or the years of age apart? I’ve learned not to complain about stiffness after I garden all day. I don’t mention the money I’ve spent on lotions and creams for my skin. We don’t make love with the light on anymore and my breasts that once reached down like ripe fruit above you now hang with a pendulance I feel I must hide. You believe that the streaks in my hair are still blonde.
There are secrets I’m keeping, places I won’t let you be. And though the sometimes puzzled look in your eyes like a child not getting the punch line is a hurt I must bear, I fear more the thought that you see what I see so clearly. I back off, do what I can, cover what I must, and we don’t talk about things anymore.
I’m afraid if we put it to words, it would be.
