Because, if you fuck him
in our turn-of-the-century Craftsman bungalow,
under the Egyptian-cotton sheets
where we vowed to hold our sacred bond
above
all
else,
my heart will collapse in despair,
our children will suffer plagues of misfortune,
our families will wail and gnash their teeth,
and all who hold us in esteem
will mourn the loss
of another romantic construct
stripped of its false ornaments.
That is the story I tell myself
of divorce
and its malignant offspring.
It is a harrowing tale,
rooted in the same antiquated sentiment
that compelled us to declare,
"'Til death do us part."
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
But I can tell a different story,
a daring, triumphant one
that breaks this rising tide of borrowed myth
and bitter prophecy.
In this version, no child is marked by ash,
no curse descends,
the ground does not split open.
I forgive you for breaking rank.
You forgive me for making an altar of us,
then polishing the stones
as the fire went out.
We let the myth keep its martyrs
and learn, instead, the testimony of change,
how love can transform its shape
without vanishing.
Here, grief is not an executioner
but a midwife,
and the child she delivers
is not tragedy but a second life blinking
in the unfamiliar light.
We release each other back into the species,
leaving the altar unattended,
candles burned to the nub,
flowers gone to seed,
guests returned to their homes.
Vows, once living things,
are honored not for their endurance
but by their honest burial.
Nothing sacred is broken
because nothing sacred is owned,
and we, uncoupled,
are not the ruin foretold,
but two figures in the open air
astonished by how much
sky remains.
