This is it Ted, the only honest way I can say it, without yelling, without getting angry, (long title, sorry).

I like numbers; I should just number everything.

I'm writing this because you asked, but you should already know, the anger that blooms so ferociously is just a reaction to everything. Ted, I remember everything.

1. So it's dark, and I've worked ten hours, with the seals and so on...and the trepidation begins when I jangle my keys and open the door, and you're there, all dark, with your booze and your hatred seeping out of your pores and thickening in the air, making me cough and hack a little and shudder. And you've got the darkest eyes, which I take into account, back pressed against the wall and my smelly scrubs and my quivering little hands--
and you hate that fear.
but I see you there, yeah, burning a seat in my memory, and after
you dissipate, and I change, you let me sink into you,
be a wife again. and love you, and love you.
and I get you dressed, and tell you I love you, and everything is well until the next day. And I think I've made you happy for a few moments: all of my possessions bundled up into one momentous and momentary triumph.

2. Ted, I say your name and it sounds false. It's the recurring dream within a dream. I don't know why I'm writing this, I suppose because you asked, and I want to discard a few of these photographs that clog my memory and make me silly, riddled with caustic inventions. Because I think I've invented this. I smell your face when you'd come into work and find me, at Joe's. You know, I wasn't really the victim you thought I was, and hated. I was actually a master of perserverance. I kept it madly, grasping at the knowledge that yeah, maybe my Ted would come in and see me. I had you there and it was everything to me. I suppose this is just me telling you that there's more than anger, the anger that stems from love and all the things I will never forget--

sometimes, sometimes...
you're tinged green like the esplanade, and the white birds (boats) of my thoughts surround you and there's no thought of addiction or grotesque stepping stones (fights). Because the thought of adorning you with tenatious affection is better than the symptoms of our gross personalities.

this is just an honest hello.

[Teddy and Gabe sit on the steps with the winos and filthy backwash of roxbury (broken people, breaking us and each other, but we loved it, didn't we.), and I'd come home, so upset...because I hadn't slept and you didn't care, but it didn't matter because you weren't supposed to, you never were supposed to, and that's good. And god, you had the darkest eyes. And I don't know if I'll ever want to be anyone else's wife again, and perhaps I'm finally getting to what I wanted to say...perhaps I'll never marry now, but still, that's not it:

I fell into you and slept safe in a toxic womb until I was born again. But it wasn't your fault, and I guess the point of this is...I guess boo, that...

3. I'd never take any of it back.]