Category: Meetings and Partings

Divorce

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com
And so the sun begins its final setting
In that final twilight a transformation
US becomes YOU and ME
Without pomp or party
The bittersweet return to ourselves
Unwoven and remade 
Hopes already decaying underground
Receive no grave marker
Hard won freedom and quietly resonating loss
We are becoming reluctant singularities
This fading light falls upon the final paragraph in the book of us
Two new books await
Unmarred by pain and tears
I wish I could say there will be no mourning
There is a hole where the unwritten life was excised
A wound where the light just doesn't reach and never will
I am told this is not unreasonable
Deeply feeling people cannot stop feeling
Life is nowhere near so black and white to allow for such
I send with you the last of my hope
Hope you will find your way
Hope you will learn to heal your fractures
Hope you can become the father you wanted to be
As the calendar counts down
The minutes marching relentlessly by
I reflect on my love for you that never died
It just couldn't thrive or survive the wreckage we became
We have forever marked each other with kisses and scars
As stamp and ink erases us
I gratefully return you to your own keeping
And truly wish you well

-gws

Thresholds

I find myself standing upon another threshold 
Bags packed
Affairs ordered
The past at my back as I stand poised to step into my future 
In this liminal space I wish to pause 
To linger in this brief moment 
Between heartbeats
Between footsteps
To reflect on this transition

I have packed the important things
Lessons
Friendships 
Memories
Love 
Potential 
Hope
I have purged the obsolete 
Pain
Fear
Illusions
Expectations
Obligations
A version of a life I outgrew

I note my era of milestones
Marriage 
Motherhood
Misery greater than a person should ever hold

I will miss the map pin piercing the shape of what has been and always will be home
Marking the places and people that ripened me into the woman I am
Whose stories now inform my mythology 

The second hand strains 
I breathe in one more breath 
Infuse the ether of a fading life
Into the nucleus of my cells
As I complete my crossing 
Into the dawn of my new life

-gws

On Becky’s Retirement

Photo by Lara Jameson on Pexels.com
Your hearty chuckle we will miss
Your quirk and humor too
A life of leisure and of bliss
Is soon awaiting you

No more price checks for you to chase
Nor contracts or email replies
It's time to fill up that empty suitcase
And share your cheerful goodbyes

May retirement be all you hope
And these halls but just a memory
We just ask that you not gloat
As you enjoy your unfettered reverie

-gws

Significant Other

My significant other 
Is more other than significant now
I wish I felt better about this fact
I do not miss the now of him
I’m still in love with the then of him
When love knocks you can never know 
The beauty or horror in its entourage 
You believe love can conquer all
And learn that love is often not enough 
My significant other left
A significant mark on me
That is hardly insignificant 

-gws

The Next Chapter

And so comes the end of the heaviest chapter
The plot twisted dramatically 
In the hands of an unreliable narrator 
Linear time fractured
Slowed
Ran backward 
Perspectives shifted
Creating more confusion than clarity

Muted colors of nostalgia dull recollections 
Emotional sharpness blunted
The hollow ache of a long goodbye 
Completed with the deliberate placement 
Of an arch-ending period.

The next act begins with a page turn
“THE NEXT CHAPTER” written atop it

-gws

Tabula Rasa

My future is tabula rasa
Full of possibilities

Slow to emerge from the long shadows 
And still brushing off the cobwebs of shame, doubt, and fear
I begin to wonder what awaits me
Who awaits me

The question nauseates me
I'm not ready to open my heart
Nor do I expect to be ready any time soon
And yet I find myself wondering 
Will there be another 
My heart fearfully whispering,
"Will I get a second chance?"

I'm not ready to fall in love again
I am only longing for the magic of falling
The elation that comes from feeling seen
Feeling chosen
Because all I wanted for so long 
Was to feel chosen
To be enough

I am working to remember how to love me
How to be enough for myself
How to appreciate my perfect imperfections
How to forgive the choices I made to survive
I must become reacquainted with me

My future is tabula rasa
Full of possibilities
Bursting with opportunity to craft a life I want to live
And blessed with time to heal from a life I endured
I embrace my next chapter gratefully
Even as my knees quake with each step forward

My blank slate has its first word: freedom
Its second word: peace
I think that's a beautiful place for a new story to start

-gws

I Grieve

I grieve you
The you I fell in love with
The you who glowed when you laughed
The you who loved me for loving your vulnerability 

You are not dead
But you are gone
No hope or prayer or wishing will bring you back

I can’t help but want to see you again
Beneath the monster who wears your skin
The one who ate away the soul of you over long years

If I hear you
I know it is not you
It is an echo of you
A remnant used by the monster to try to lure me back

I’m sorry I couldn’t save you
I watched you struggle to save yourself but the monster won
Drowned you in anger, hurt, bitterness, and addiction
Consumed you from the inside out

I grieve you
I grieve my hope for you
For us
For our family

I grieve the dream turned nightmare
I grieve the loss of myself in the torrent of your disease
I loved you
I lost you
I’m sorry

-gws