Nest Building... And Other Home Truths That Don't Exist If We Look Away From The Mirror Quick Enough

Discretely, She builds a new nest with care,

Gently nurturing a new landing spot,

Nourishing new connections,

Her platonic compliments create space for another to enter

A means to let Them know She sees Them

An invitation for reciprocation

A signal that their attention will be met kindly

Like dropping the handkerfchief with plausible deniability

Nurturing a connection

Watering the garden

To see what will bloom

While He maintains their current nest

Receiving all the love, safety and security She basks in

Familiar and comfortable

She picks up twigs

Doing just enough to show Them

She is a safe space for Their vulnerability

At home She shows Him

His heart is still in Her hands,

No imminent threat

Show Him just enough

He’ll keep tending to their nest

It’s hard to see that She may have already flown the coup

When She’s still sleeping in their nest

So, he keeps on toiling

Always there to rely on

To show Her He cares

Still looking for ways to make life fun

Still believing that She could be The One

Working on mending bridges

Assuming Her future hasn’t been determined

What looks and feels like loving affection

She always want Him there

All the while She’s tending to other gardens

And chipping away at Her secret nest

Roads are being built by another

Exit plans forming organically

Unbeknownst to Him

They’ve always travelled together

To make Her life easier

Is enough to drive Her anywhere

To everything they every loved

To jobs, that without him

She would never get

To past lovers from her timeouts

Helping her deliver cakes, That she backed with love and care

Baking for men she’d recently met

How sweet, oh look up there!

Another spot to build a nest,

She thinks of every one

The arbitrator of good and bad

Anosognosic, Moral Myopia

There is no wrong, if ‘you’ say you felt hurt

Oh, sorry not ‘you’, just Her

How pure, honest and innocent

The mental gymnastics, quite impressive

What a pure heart she had, just ask Her

Always accepting Her Ugliness

Because He knew Her horrors

Really should have kept a list of all the insanity

He’d forgive and forget so quickly

When you don’t analyse what’s in the mirror

Free up time to pick up twigs and faults

To build Her nests, and conveniently forget

All She could not weaponise

All this meant the only time left

She spent focused on keeping Him defending

Discretely, She buys a one-way ticket in her mind

Refundable, with no expiration date

Her nest isn’t yet ready

Nothing is set in stone

He suspects that change is coming

He sees Her once insatiable need for His affection

In her neediness and begging,

In Her constant need for reassurance

And His approval and heartfelt words of affirmation,

He felt loved, wanted, needed

Then it became Obvious

There was someone else,

You let Her be

She won’t tell Him, not yet

He already knows, he doesn’t need to ask

Weeks go by

Radio silence

Then texts begin to trickle

And quickly the trickle becomes familiar flood

Time together, another trickle turned familiar flood

He still loves Her company

She still loves His, but not like She once did

Beyond all doubt He’s certain

When enough time has past

You’ll share a nest together for good

But He knows that this nest is not it

He is under no illusion on his role in Her nest,

He is now a place-holder

A comfy, but worn-out, old bedsheet

Pulled down from the back of the closet until clean, fresh sheets are ready for Her bed

He wonders if She is even capable of admitting that to Herself

That that’s precisely the role She has relegated him to

To acknowledge that, is to admit to Herself

That She is a user and manipulator

Of those She loves, or once loved

He believes (or chooses) to believe

That Her blood is not that cold

He’s seen Her beauty, and Her Ugliness.

He knows Her horrors.

His heart bleeds and His soul cries out to God

To heal Her wounds, Her trauma,

And lift the yoke of pain and vindictiveness, born from Her horrors