You are old enough to feel it.

You are old enough to fear it.

You are far away from home.

You are too old to yearn, yet you do.

You are too wise for heartache, yet you ache.

You are too hardened to heartbreak, yet you break.

You are wizened, you are wrinkled.

You are the once beautiful girl with a picture on the mantle to remind you of what was

-- a mirror to remind you of what is.

Is any of it worth it?

The phone calls go unanswered.

The friends hand on the line, then disconnect.

The saviors come and go, one by one, you turn them away.

You make a promise to yourself; you once were strong. Never will you be as she,

bullied, under finger, someone’s dumb and dumpy wife, a life of nothingness, strife,

while he greedily seeks some other, a lover, as once you were. But you’re not her and these days.

The difference is this:

You don’t play anymore. The game is up. No warnings given. He ignores, so what’s the use. You have tried to explain, you have tried to show him the pain, the why the not, the steady beat of the heart when it is happy, the pain and sob when it breaks.

He is deaf to it all. He only hears if you speak with an accent and that, dear, must be French. You could take her down, but what would that prove. Make the usual comparisons, and sure, you’d come out on top, but it was he you cared about and with him, you did not win.

No one did.

Even he did not know what he did – what he wanted.

He wanted that which wanted him.

How do I begin to tell you the ways in which I now say no?

There is a road.

I know nothing of where it leads, but I’ll follow it now.

I can’t sit here anymore while you play out your private war,

beat after beat, bullying with words, the “easy” like I’m your bitch

she you hate but keep around just in case.

Are you so sure you know who I am?

You know where I stand? where you land

at the end of all of this, this American

domestic bliss. Proceed as if you know –

as you do. Tomorrow, go and kiss her,

tell her how you missed her,

while elsewhere you are sure of what

I’m doing, never once thinking that

your dull and frigid wife could be

more you than you, not thinking twice,

once, years of being faithful, she gives

up. The saddest thing is to see love,

how it leaves, how it bleeds, how

it empties the heart and leaves her blank

eyed and tired. Unmoved by anything

that you do.