Yours. Mine. Ours? Mine.
I can feel her on your hands, a band of gold that marks her place.
It burns me and I take my hand from yours.
I smile; Say I'm okay.
I'm not okay.
We never meant for this to happen but now it has I can feel her in the room.
Your vows hang over me, a thunder storm above my head and I am ready to be struck down.
I deserve it.
I never meant for this to happen.
We. We didn't mean for this to happen.
Quiet moments became conversations lasting well past their due date and as our words became more the space between us became less.
And less.
And gone.
We laughed it off.
Friends of friends.
Colleagues.
Workers.
A mentor and just another young girl.
I don't feel young any more.
Your ring has aged me in ways I never thought possible.
In ways I never thought I'd be.
Not just a normal woman, I am now the Other because the one that you belong to isn't here.
Isn't thought of by you, or me, or us.
Am I a bad person that when I'm with you I don't think of her?
Don't picture her waiting up at home.
Don't picture her waiting for you.
Waiting for something. For anything. For more.
I have more. I have you.
And I don't picture her at all.
I have taken you from her and she doesn't even know.
I have taken you and made you mine and I am yours and we are happy and yet still I am burned by a ring on your left hand.
I never meant for this to happen.
You were the mentor, the teacher, the one in charge, in control.
You were supposed to be one of the good ones.
The great ones.
The one I could look up to, and look to to make things better when they fell apart but now your hands are beside me tearing down this jenga tower of what could, would, should be, and burying the shouldn't's under layers of deceit.
We didn't mean for this to happen.
Didn't mean for it to go beyond the meetings, the pressure, the conferences, the days of being awake for 16 hours and working through it all with you by my side.
Other people noticed an us before we stopped just being a you and an I. Sly glances, small smiles, and laughing at obscure jokes from 1980s movies.
We talked of rugby, and of life, and of books, and of papers, and of societal contructs that neither one of us believed should be enforced upon the general population, until finally, we stopped talking.
There were much more interesting things to be doing.
That's how these things start, I guess.
Not maliciously, or with intent.
But with confusion, and conversations, and dark stages, and empty work rooms, and rough hands touching soft, and rough hands brushing hair, and rough hands grazing lace, and rough hands clenching thighs, and rough hands bearing rings that vowed to never do this.
Never be this.
We never meant for this to happen.
It burns me and I take my hand from yours.
I smile; Say I'm okay.
I'm not okay.
We never meant for this to happen but now it has I can feel her in the room.
Your vows hang over me, a thunder storm above my head and I am ready to be struck down.
I deserve it.
I never meant for this to happen.
We. We didn't mean for this to happen.
Quiet moments became conversations lasting well past their due date and as our words became more the space between us became less.
And less.
And gone.
We laughed it off.
Friends of friends.
Colleagues.
Workers.
A mentor and just another young girl.
I don't feel young any more.
Your ring has aged me in ways I never thought possible.
In ways I never thought I'd be.
Not just a normal woman, I am now the Other because the one that you belong to isn't here.
Isn't thought of by you, or me, or us.
Am I a bad person that when I'm with you I don't think of her?
Don't picture her waiting up at home.
Don't picture her waiting for you.
Waiting for something. For anything. For more.
I have more. I have you.
And I don't picture her at all.
I have taken you from her and she doesn't even know.
I have taken you and made you mine and I am yours and we are happy and yet still I am burned by a ring on your left hand.
I never meant for this to happen.
You were the mentor, the teacher, the one in charge, in control.
You were supposed to be one of the good ones.
The great ones.
The one I could look up to, and look to to make things better when they fell apart but now your hands are beside me tearing down this jenga tower of what could, would, should be, and burying the shouldn't's under layers of deceit.
We didn't mean for this to happen.
Didn't mean for it to go beyond the meetings, the pressure, the conferences, the days of being awake for 16 hours and working through it all with you by my side.
Other people noticed an us before we stopped just being a you and an I. Sly glances, small smiles, and laughing at obscure jokes from 1980s movies.
We talked of rugby, and of life, and of books, and of papers, and of societal contructs that neither one of us believed should be enforced upon the general population, until finally, we stopped talking.
There were much more interesting things to be doing.
That's how these things start, I guess.
Not maliciously, or with intent.
But with confusion, and conversations, and dark stages, and empty work rooms, and rough hands touching soft, and rough hands brushing hair, and rough hands grazing lace, and rough hands clenching thighs, and rough hands bearing rings that vowed to never do this.
Never be this.
We never meant for this to happen.