When Did You Know Me?

When November came and everything exploded,
Your dad called and read that text to you.
And you confirmed: "Well she never called ME!"

That was true.

You knew it too.

So when did you know me
Well enough to know my heart?
When did we have all those conversations
Where I tore your words apart?
When did you meet this woman
With the personality you knew
Was somehow just too strong for you?

Because I remember someone different—
Someone trying much too hard
To find a little place with you.

You said I had a "strong personality,"
And I knew what you meant that night.
Maybe I am strong when I need to be.
I definitely stand for what is right.
But not with you.

With you I softened every corner,
Measured everything I'd say.
I wanted so badly to be accepted
I made myself smaller along the way.

If you'd ever witnessed my strong personality,
At least I'd understand the claim.
But you hadn't.

Neither had any of your siblings.

So where did you meet
This woman with my name?

Then you said I twist your words.

And that one stopped me cold.

What words?

What conversations without your Dad
Had I ever had with To bend the meaning,
Turn against you, make untrue?
We weren't close enough for that kind of history.
That's the painful truth.
You kept me at the edges.
I was just 'Dad's wife' to you.
So how did I become someone
Who'd spent years twisting you?

When did you know me
Well enough to know my heart?
When did we have all those conversations
Where I tore your words apart?
When did you meet this woman
You described so easily?
Because the woman in your accusations
Doesn't look at all like me.

Maybe I was far from perfect.
No doubt I made mistakes.
But when did you know me
Well enough 
To pronounce who I must be?

And then it reached your children.

April's anger came to me:
"Don't text me anymore."
Another door closed suddenly.
She said she didn't like the way
I'd spoken to her mother,
Or the things I'd said about
Someone loved.

And again I searched my memory.

What had I said?
What had I done?

Because what I remembered
Was sitting with her partner one day,
Talking while April slept,

And afterward telling Grandpa,
"We may not agree with their lifestyle, but
She really is a very nice young lady."

So how did that become something else?
How did kindness become cruelty
Inside a story I had never heard?

Caleb never sent the anger.
That's not who he's ever been.
He simply stopped replying

Silence.

We cheered him toward his mission,
Helped support him while he served.
And now even little holiday wishes
Disappear without a word.

No explosion.

No accusation.

Just more silence
Where a relationship once was.

That's what I don't understand, Mindy.

We didn't have some awful history.
There wasn't a single disagreement.
There weren't cruel exchanges.
There wasn't some long list
Of wounds that I had caused.

There was mostly distance.

Politeness.

Trying.

And me hoping someday
I'd feel a little less like
Your father's wife
And a little more like family.

Then suddenly I was dangerous.

Strong.

Twisting words.

And I still don't know—

When did you meet that person?
Because I never did.

When did you know me
Well enough to judge my heart?

When did the woman standing quietly
Become the villain in your part?

You knew I hadn't called you.
You said so yourself that night.
And still somehow before the call ended
I had become the one not right.
I had become the one not right!

I won't claim I never failed you.
I won't claim perfection now.
I'm only asking for the evidence
Behind the things you said somehow.