Consolation by Devi Nina Bingham

Even my name had the word "free" in it,

and I was as good as my name.

While none would argue that I was a free spirit,

my own insecurities held me captive.

I played a game of "I do not care" 

when the truth was that I cared too much.

We play games with those we love

while hating to fool them,

because we should share

our most sacred truths 

with those we hold the dearest.

To be dishonest is to denigrate the relationship,

but I played "I do not care" because he genuinely did not.

What I learned from this game 

was how ugly and hurtful it can be,

acting worldly and callous 

and using others for your own purposes.

A part of myself was satiated 

that I had taken my revenge,

and I proved that I could be as flip and careless as he could. 

Once this facade wore thin

I would retreat to my house of blue

and feel the rejection, the loneliness, and the longing,

what I hated to feel.

Then I would paint my broken interior

for the world to see,

as shattered as my spine and unhealed.

Either pain or wonder is the cause of creation,

and I wondered at the amount of pain I had been given to ingest.

How can one frail girl be asked to bear the sins of the world?

This wonder at my own complete misfortune followed me 

and caused not a powerlessness, but a defiance. 

If circumstances were going to take a whip to me

I would be the bravest and strongest and bear my back,

never betraying how frightening were the endless surgeries,

the miscarriages, and the living hell of my husband's indignities.

I had resolved to play the mute when in public.

But in private, he heard plenty.

Women have always swallowed their betrayals and sorrows

for the sake of protecting their marriage.

Funny, but I do not think there has ever been a husband who realized 

how catastrophically his wife could have and wanted to ruin him.

The life of a woman in love is destined to be tragic,

though at first neither can imagine how.

My life was a series of disasters 

that I illustrated in a certain odd way

that came to be known as an artistic triumph. 

At the time I did not think of my work 

as worthy of acclaim.

To me they were nothing more than an open diary.

In time they found an audience 

among the heartbroken, my fellow sufferers.

Many would interpret what I painted

as their own grief.

Those who looked closely

saw their accidents 

hidden among my own.

Yet, the one person I needed most 

did not care.

The warmth of an adoring audience

has been a consolation far greater,

like that of a thousand worshipful suns.