Interesting take, JT. My thinking would be that honesty is a necessary component of love, at least real love.
But I wouldn’t say the poem is asking for honesty so much as perhaps empathy. An acknowledgment of the pain. Maybe even just common courtesy. Or at least the idea that it matters. We treat total strangers better than people we have shared love with or even, in this case, a marriage. As you may suspect, the poem was drawn on life experience. It was a long time ago.
I don’t know what made me think of it recently.
But all I ever wanted was this, which I never received:
Jezebel
To think of my task is chilling.
To know I was carefully building
the mask I was wearing for two years,
swearing I’d tear it off.
I’ve sat in the dark explaining
to myself that I’m straining
too hard for feelings
I ought to find easily.
Called myself Jezebel.
I don’t believe.
Before I say that the vows we made
weigh like a stone in my heart.
Family is family, don’t let this tear us apart.
You lie there, an innocent baby.
I feel like the thief who is raiding
your home, entering and breaking and taking
in every room.
I know your feelings are tender
and that inside you the embers
still glow. But I’m a shadow,
I’m only a bed of blackened coal.
Call myself Jezebel
for wanting to leave.
I’m not saying I’m replacing love
for some other word
to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
I’m just saying we’ve mistaken one
for thousands of words.
And for that mistake, I’ve caused you such pain
that I damn that word.
I’ve no more ways to hide
that I’m a desolate and empty,
hollow place inside.
I’m not saying I’m replacing love
for some other word
to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
I’m not saying love’s a plaything.
No, it’s a powerful word,
inspired by strong desire to bind myself to you.
How I wish that we never had tried to be
man and his wife,
to weave our lives
into a blindfold over both our eyes.
-10000 Maniacs