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Apr 2023
Saudade (Portuguese)
Literally means longing
The missing of something that's always been absent.
A melancholic longing for an unknown (mistake) (nostalgia) that may have never existed

The Missing Moment
by Ryan P. Kinney

The Dress:
“I know she was wearing a dress, the dress. The one she never got to wear. Working 60-hour weeks on top of nursing school. I was trying to help her keep up her nightmarish zeal to be anything better than herself. I got a second job. I worked with her. I wasn’t enough. That night, she just wanted the dress and to drink and forget. But I was too tired helping her bend into the new shape she was desperately trying to be. I left. Fearing I’d be too tired to make it home, to get up in the morning for my other job. To be strong enough for her.
And I knew when I walked out, the mistake I had just made.
It was the night she broke. The night she broke me.”

The Answer:
“There is another missing one. The night I made the mistake of asking another her if she even wanted to be with me. Again, I knew my mistake the moment it left my mouth. Voicing the question already predetermined the answer. I spoke reality to truth. And once again, the void of timelessness swallowed me.”

My Sins:
“I miss them both.”

The road to approval is paved with rejections.

Original sin wasn’t the apple. It was the woman. It was *** and the fear of the power of creation.

Just because I’m lonely doesn’t mean everyone else has to suffer. I’m not out to punish the rest of the world for my mistakes.

If you keep bending her into what you want her to be, eventually you’ll break her
Ryan P Kinney
Written by
Ryan P Kinney  M/Mentor, OH
(M/Mentor, OH)   
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