When Will We

When will we not text "good night"
Will this really be the end?
I know I had stopped saying good night
Months ago

And I regret it now
It was childish
And stupid
And I wish I hadn't done that

To us
To you
To me

To start the day
To end the day

That's what I'm missing
Without you

I'm getting used to the silence
But the waves of sadness
Still come here and there

That there's an empty space
In the bed
And the things I used
To think were annoying

I miss
I admit it
I miss

Replacing Photos

The walls are bare
Random holes
Show injury
In the walls

Where his photos were
Not yours

The blank walls are
Empty canvases
For you to paint what you will
What you want

Your life
Not his

Looking through old frames
You have choices
To pick from
Black and white, metal, and color

So many choices
Good to have choices

The memories of togetherness
Cut and taped beneath a matte
Placed behind glass
And hung on walls of the past

Now you dust them off
Undue the tape

Going through your photo album
You carefully choose which ones
To print, to cut, to hang
These are the new images

For your space
Your life

Rage

I felt myself bubbling
like the percolator
I use to brew
My dark, black coffee

But I didn't have to
Plug the electric cord in
Something had already
Set me off; something that he did

I knew I had to get out of there
Or I was going to explode
With shards of nail bits
In his skin, eyes, and clothing

All he had to do
Was the laundry today
That's it
He rarely is ever asked much more

And he doesn't even have a job anymore
Again
Same story
Whatever

I'm so mad at him
At myself
That the day before
The divorce this is the stress on my

I left him a note saying,
Do whatever with the laundry
I'm not waiting for it to dry
For me to change it

I feel the anger
In my shoulders
Between and in
The muscles that meet my neck

I'm probably still mad
At him when he almost
Killed himself
How could he let me know?

He knew that I'd
Try and stop him
Wait up for him
Call the police on him

He said it was - selfish
Fuck yeah it was selfish
That he wouldn't even wait
Until we were divorced

That I'd have his debt
I wasn't going to be a widower
Divorce me first, I asked
Just wait a few more days

Then, find the train
Drink yourself down the hole
I fucking don't care
And won't be responsible

These are harsh words
I rarely say
But you've made me get
To this point

So, fuck you
I can't wait until you're gone.

When WE becomes ME

The WE is falling down the hill
as it falls the E turns circles as the W
rolls to try and catch up
sometimes it's EW and sometimes it's WE

What happens when a WE dissolves
and the W turns to an M
which then makes ME
from the plural to singular

It's been a WE situation for nearly 11 years
a rocky one but a good one too
I went from an I to a ME to a WE
But sometimes lost myself too

He would sometimes ask me
What order I put - me, him, and us
I would put us first, then, him, and me
ME last

I know better now
I know better that it has to be ME
Then, us
Then, him

He knew this already
And at times I was angry about
Him putting himself first
How dare he

I didn't want ME first
for him
but at least
put us first

I'm sad not to be a WE
I know there's a lot of social capital
that comes with a
WE

But I'm also just sad
not to have the spouse
and partner I thought I was going to have
for the rest of my life

As the letters continue to fall and roll
the WE, ME, EM, EW, WWWW, MMMM
EEEEEE
I hope they'll land softly and unbroken

There's always more

I didn't think we could be
more further apart
but we are

the small things
not saying "good night"
to each other

I used to pull
the light cord
and, you'd come and hear it

now, the metal chain
is yanked down
I turn on my side to sleep

I've always slept
on my right side
I didn't mean to sleep
away from you

I've slept on the left side
of the bed
and I've still faced outward

sometimes I've been afraid
that you're going to
accidentally hit me in the night
you don't sleep as calmly as

I do

I can't sleep
on my stomach like
you do

you still invite me to eat
your cooking
but I'm not
eating meat so much

so that isn't shared
anymore

we can still be
in the same bed
but be worlds apart

people can be worlds apart
and still feel like
they're facing each other

that's love

Caring for/Caring about

How drastically different a phrase can be from just one word.
One word.

For me right now, I think of - "caring for" and "caring about." This was recently brought up. I hadn't thought about it too much, but as I'm transition of separating from my current spouse, the phrase does mean something more to me now.

Will we care about each other after we are divorced?
Yes, I hope so. I hope I will share with him any major life happenings. The death of a family member. The birth of a baby. Someone moving. A trip. These things that are just FYI.

But, we won't be caring for each other anymore.
We won't have the additional step when you're partnered to "do something" with the knowledge of the other person.

I was asked, "Do you think you'll still talk to each other after the divorce?"
I think so, but it will be less frequent and obviously different.
I already feel like I'm trying to do the balance of keeping separate, but also together, since we're still living together, but separate.

Some nights I miss him so much, even when he's only eight feet away in the next room. I didn't think we could be even more emotionally separate than we had been in the past year, but I was wrong. And then there's the physical intimacy, too - and not just sex. What I miss the most is the cuddling in bed or on the couch. This makes me really sad to have lost this. I loved his warm chest. His arm around me until I was falling asleep and I would turn over. Or, also "twitch" as he would say. I'd be warm with him.

My Ring Tan Line is Gone

It took almost 11 years
To get a ring tan
And only two months
For it to fade away

To my darker skin
I got after being
On the beach so much
This summer

It wasn't on purpose
I didn't really think
About it
All that much

I didn't get to say
Goodbye to it
Take a picture of it
Kiss it one last time