I feel my soul shrivel and fade within my tired body. I see the woman. She is beautiful. Her back is straight and her skin glows. Her hair shines deep chocolate, swishing around her delicate hips. I wrap my frail hands around my skinny frame. I can see what he saw in her.
I don't know what I did wrong. I don't know when the change started, but it is too late to change things now. I could surrender and let him go, but he would not leave. My loyal man. The man I continue to love, although I know he wants to leave. I will surrender one day.
While I lay in my bed, old and tired, I see her in his eyes. Her glossy hair and healthy skin. My bones are like sticks and my skin is dry leather. I am not the girl he loves. My hair lies in curls on the pillow where I rest my restless head. My stomach is empty and hollow where there could have been life. My heart is weak and suffering. And still he sees the woman. He tries to do it in private but I have caught him. I do not punish. I do not even gasp. I have barely enough breath to keep going, but I do. My heart faintly drums on amidst the pain. And like a wounded animal, I drag myself on through this madness, trying to heal an opening that has not ceased bleeding.
I am going to die. I have accepted this, but he has not. He no longer speaks to me. He no longer sits with me. I lie alone in my bed, while he briefly looks me over, to check my chest is still rising. I see her in his eyes. I know he will be seeing her in the room below me. As dawn creeps closer, as the end creeps closer, that video with the beautiful woman I barely know, wearing my white gown on my glowing skin, swishing my long brown hair around my hips, continues to play.
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