No Joy

Looking through the store window, 

the trunks of the bamboo trees look like bars.

The trees have been strung with lighted hearts

 and beyond there are masses of balloons

and bouquets. None of it for me.

Unless I buy it for myself.

Thoroughly jilted a few years back by a man 

I'd trusted with my life for over ten years, 

I am only now beginning to emerge from the haze 

of confusion and hurt he left behind.

I guess he thought I didn't need him. I didn't.

I wanted him and that's a big difference.

I paid my own rent, dreamed my own dreams

and didn't need another person to "fulfill" me.

What he did leave me with was a better

sense of myself, increased self-confidence

and an odd sort of courage; I am comfortable 

in my own skin, in a way I never was 

before I met him.

I suppose one might say, then, that I got 

the better end of the deal.