These days I can't remember why I married him. I feel brainwashed at times; when he comes home late at night and sits down to a beer, when he yells, or when he doesn't show up for days at a time at all, and leaves me wondering. Those are the times. The times I wonder why I did it all those years ago. why I married him.

I feel as though we aren't in love, maybe we were never in love. Maybe I was blinded by his life choices and style. He was so care free, and bad. Maybe that's it, maybe I was going through a phase that didn't end quick enough, and now I'm paying the price.

After all of that, even though we don't make love anymore, as if we ever had, even though we don't talk, or try anymore, we're together. It's for the kids. My little girl, and baby boy. It's so they don't have to leave their house, even though it may only be a trailer in an old, broken down trailer park.

Everyday I wake up alone. He will usually be next to me in bed at night, but when he isn't, I can only guess he's out smoking, or just out thinking. That's a usual thing for him; thinking. Many don't know, but he stays up late at night, he lies there, and he thinks. Why he never does it during the day when he's making choices is beyond me. But it integers me, to lie there and watch his gears turn; his pupils rapidly dart from point to point, his face sometimes turn red. Sometimes he pretends to be sleeping for what I think my own benefit, but he can't fool me. I've seen him exhausted, and bouncing off the walls, I know him, I know him very well.