I need to.
I want to.
Then I would be able to have my own friends.
Whatever sex they may be.

Plus he wouldn’t have to worry about me.
And I wouldn’t have to worry over him.
Home wouldn’t get in the way of my studies.
Full time enrollment
won’t harm my house cleaning or work.
Wouldn’t have to be cordial to my mother-in-law.
No more.
Could tell her what I think of her
and her hypocritical life.
Wouldn’t have to be cordial to any of his
asswhole friends.
And I wouldn’t have to worry about what kind
of trouble his friends where getting him into.
I wouldn’t have to worry about when he was
going to be home.
I would be able to go to museums,
libraries and zoos and other cultural events
---
without having to drag him along.
(It is so-o-o boring to him!)
I wouldn’t have to worry about my “just-friends” males
getting beat up by him either.
Schooling would be ten times easier,
I could get a grant
instead of the loan I now have to pay back
because he makes too much
but low and behold if he helps pay for my education.

I gave up my dream, put it off so he could get his career
and this is the way he treats me for letting go 
of my one chance at getting a degree so
many years ago
was I not a good wife
was i cruel to him
cruel to his relatives
cruel to his friends

Yet he talked nasty of my friends
how I failed at so much as being a wife
talked cruelly of my relatives
as if my friends meant nothing
or as they should mean nothing to me
that my family should mean nothing to me
as if he was the only think in my life.

I know this cannot be right
that something is amiss
why is it that only I can see it
and he is so blind?
 

written in April of 1995

Rowan M. Luis