With naught even a whisper
I closed the book
Put down the pen
Then cracked a new book
To begin again…
-gws
Closure
Tag: Relationships
Divorce
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
Ode to the Couple on the Corner Compulsively Compelled by Their Compact Computers
The digital divide is a divisive devil
Erecting electronic edifices
Severing sacred spaces
Intended for intimate inhabitation
Subjugating and suffocating
Candid considerate connections
Exsanguinating emotional efforts
Ridiculously replacing rapport
With mindless meaningless memes and
Endless eager empty emojis
Segregated strangers staring submissively
Into inexorable insipidness instead of
Havens of humble human hearts
-gws
Done
“I am done,” is the quietest, most power-filled sentence in a woman’s lexicon.
-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
“I love you”
You have said a lifetime's worth of, "I love you" in the last ten months
I remember that you rarely said it in the twenty-three years
When I needed to hear it like my blood needed oxygen
What am I to do with your, "I love you" now
Now that I cannot love you anymore
Oh! My heart still loves you
Still wrings drops of hope from itself
Hope hanging heavy from tear tracts
To be wiped bitterly away
Because there is no hope left
Hope is just a tether
Preventing me from moving on
From acknowledging the truth that
The third body is dead and has been for a long time
Love's hope nearly destroyed me
Consumed me
My heart will not let me pry this foolish hope from her hands
So instead, I have to lock it away
In the dark, cold, empty cavity that is my chest
Heart unable to comprehend that I do this for our own good
It screams and howls in the echoing silence
"One last chance!"
"One more time!"
"Maybe this time! Maybe! Just maybe!"
"I love you" manifests no magic here
"I love you" will not call forth a miracle for us
I still love you,
Too
But I HAVE to love me,
MORE
-gws
What I’m Thinking
What I'm thinking is:
This is hard shit.
That sometimes grabbing that fact by the throat and screaming in its face is necessary from time to time.
Sometimes sitting in the shadow of that truth is required when our spirits are tired and our hearts so broken.
And when we're done, we rest. We breathe. And we rise and fight some more.
Because we're mothers.
-gws
Lock That Door
When we leave a toxic relationship
self-doubt and second guessing prevent us
From locking the door behind us
We wonder if we’ve made the right choice
We wonder if we’ve made a mistake
If your freedom feels like liberation
You have made the right choice
For your long term wellbeing
It’s time to lock that door
-gws
Gaslighting
You refused to take responsibility
So I accepted it instead
Until the day I found
You in someone else’s bed
You didn’t do the right thing
You clutched your pearls and said,
“If only you had been the wife
You promised when we wed”
At first I shrank around the wound
Thinking you were right
Believing that it may be true
That I’d been a lousy wife
I thought of all the arguments
That were constant in our life
The years of ugly, cutting blame
The insistence you were right
But then the rage came rushing in
You would gaslight me no more
I said that you were full of shit
And kicked you out the door
I realized I had done my part
In holding up my vow
It was you who failed on every front
I’d not be blamed right now
You made choices on your own
Now I have made some too
So hit the road, you selfish prick
Gaslighting days are through
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 