Words of Comfort

I watched him cry without offering words of comfort. This had been our routine. "I am a good person," I told myself behind a cup of tasteless coffee. Only those who can watch someone cry and not offer words of comfort need that kind of reminder. But I convinced myself that I was a good person, for loving a man who could only account for his own self-pity.

And as I watched this poor man cry I felt somewhat helpless. It is always strange to see a man cry, especially men like fathers or boyfriends. I couldn’t help but feel helpless. On the outside I was standing still, hiding behind eight ounces of chalky coffee. On the inside I was running back and forth throughout the room screaming relentlessly, “My empire is CRUMBLING!“ All I could do was stare and say nothing and sip coffee and run back and forth across the room screaming relentlessly, while hoping that maybe my half-divided attention was enough.

I washed out the few remaining drops of littered caffeine and sat down beside him. We both sat there quietly staring at our eggplant-yellow walls. I glanced over at him only to be glanced at back. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was streaked with red. I looked away and fidgeted only to later start biting my nails again. I imagined our future. I imagined us both old and grey, I still biting my fingernails. I imagined he would still be crying sixty years from now, on that same couch, in front of those same eggplant-yellow walls. I questioned whether I wanted to be looking at an eighty year old man with bloodshot eyes and a red-streaked face or an eighty year old man with a smile outlined by heavy wrinkles. The answer to that question came easily.

The fights that followed my inability to take care of this poor man were unbearable. He met our living room lamp with his fist and asked me if I really loved him. As the word “love” escaped his lips, I heard the light bulb shattering against the corner wall. That word shattered with the light bulb and it all crashed together like an oxymoron. I stopped biting my nails long enough to mutter a yes with a forced breath. “Of course,” I said.

He crouched in front of me and grabbed both of my hands. “Then you have to stop biting your nails,” he remarked behind a false smile.

I returned the smile and he kissed my forehead. This was his apology. As he moved to the bedroom, I struggled to shift the couch and sweep up the broken leftovers from the fight. This was my apology. While he was in the bedroom falling into a heavy sleep, I would return the couch to its original position and cry quietly in front of it. And as I collapsed in that ugly yellow room I convinced myself that I was only human, for not quite knowing how to love a man who could only account for his own self-pity.