Unfortunately, contemporary families are being broken up. Divorce is running rampantly through our nation, and while I support that people have the right to choose to stay in a marriage or leave it, I do believe that many households split up due to obstacles that could be overcome. My own family has faced this awful phenomenon, and the following prose free-verse poem is inspired by my life and what I have seen around me. Disclaimer: It is fiction, but the emotions that stem from it are true. This poem tries to convey that sometimes people grow apart, and that is a major cause of divorce. However, sometimes the husband and wife, or wife and wife, or husband and husband still love each other, but feel alienated. I think that issues like these can be rendered. Anyhow, it's a sad subject overall. My heart goes out to anyone who has known the pain of watching your parents go separate ways. Please enjoy.
Their First and Last
First:
First they fell in love. In chemistry class, it seemed they were fated. All those with the last name beginning in “M” were assigned to be Group 3. He had blue eyes, speckled with a silver-y grey that mesmerized her. He was wearing something funny, a t-shirt with a phrase that embarrassed her, made her giggle. And she, long dirty blonde with bright pink nails and a smile that said “I dare you” was everything he knew he couldn’t get, young punk that he was. Cheerleader and hipster. The unknown might be a fearful place to some, an endless abyss, a graveyard of dreams, almosts and maybes. But herand him took a chance. 8:00 p.m. his place to study. The tapestries and reggae collection were new, enthralling. She was Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, with the mad hatter to sweep her off her feet. To him, she was class and femininity. They studied late, as youngsters do, passing out on the futon couch amidst graphs of data and biology, their own biology bringing skin to skin as they “took it slow,” only kissing, only resting their bodies side by side.
He awoke to a smell that teleported him back to home, pancakes and bacon, maybe a little burnt but still better than Ramen. She set down the pan and glanced at him, small and shy in one of his “Legalize Hemp” t-shirts that was over-sized. DNA kicked in. The future had been an empty void until now. She could fill it. She was a young version of mom, and the security that engulfed him as the bacon grease was cleaned from his prickly lips with a kiss was more valuable than the rarest of Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards.
Middle:
He decided to change for her a little.
In the middle he took her on romantic dates and listened to the music she liked, even though it was Enya. He was vulnerable, admitting old regrets and deep fears to her and only her. Loyalty was the biggest change, his greatest sacrifice. Barely 21, with his friends all out hitting the town and chasing dames, he resisted the game and stayed with her. His playful nature still thrived, fed by flirtatious cashiers and doting waitresses. She saw and glared, yet inwardly was filled with glee that he was hers. She felt special and desired. The two exchanged dreams and more love. By the time their college years were closing, the chemistry kids were of one soul. They visited Jamaica, met each other’s families. He opened up his own business in a new city. She wanted to help him, decided med school could happen later. With their savings combined, life was easy breezy. At last he asked her a question that had been etched onto his lips since seated in “group 3,” drawing tears from her eyes as she realized, I am wanted, I am needed.
She decided to change for him a little.
Her new husband hated perfume. He preferred all-natural, and bottled scents were one of many consumerism schemes he despised. She stopped painting her eyes, wore less skirts. He would spend all day at work and she would make their home more “home-y.” It was fulfilling. She was a good wife, perhaps a great one. Everything about a perfect marriage she had ever read in a book, goggled at in a movie, was firmly taken into account and pooled together into a whirling mass of perfect perfection. She soon became pregnant, and their baby boy brought even more joy into her life. They had different parenting plans, sure. But she compromised. He loved her, worshipped her. At night as she massaged his back he would whisper, blue eyes promising, “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I need you.” All the sustenance she needed to feel satisfied. Now a young woman, unaware of how she was molding herself into a mold of someone else’s mold of someone who was a mold of a robot, a fantasy learned in history books in time periods that failed. But she and him were happy for a couple years.
Last:
Last they fell out of love. She is sitting in the living room, while clutched in her lap are hands pruny and dry from too much time spent washing dishes, bleaching jerseys; trying to wring the pain from her skin like the dirt from his clothes thinking “Why?” The clock ticks another minute, and it’s 4:35, an afternoon outside that soaks its victims. Summer. At 5:00 she’ll pick the oldest kid from camp, where the soccer stench will settle itself in the car like a fat cat. She’ll vacuum later tonight. Her neck is adorned with a new set of amber. An apology that hangs with the weight of a thousand fights, a thousand lies, a thousand broken hearts. And as she throws out an empty case of beer he drank with co-worker “Hally,” a cry bursts from dry lips and she staggers. Mother and wife, she folds to the floor as unpainted nails rake themselves into the soil, into surrender. She weeps with regret, trying to find the place where she gave up her own space and let herself become “his.” Their son is ignorant of their “separation,” and she’s hoping she’ll never have to tell him. That maybe her husband is in a phase and when he gets bored, he’ll remember how they were fated, how she was needed. That her skin is his and her mind is his and her heart is his. She can’t imagine that he would leave her. She can’t imagine. Shaky hands weave their way like ugly worms into jean pockets, finding a bottle. Two pills slice down her throat, easing her breath. “A spoon full of sugar...” plays in the back of her mind. She rips out her hair, biting her hand to silence the scream, then licks the bright blood slowly. Like sugar. It might taste like love.
He sits down, wearing his best shirt, the only tie he could find that she didn’t give him. The lawyer hands him papers, pats him firmly on the shoulder. His words are lost to the grieving husband. His wife is not whom she used to be. She is insane, emotional outbursts and fighting hands that, once bright pink nails, are now hateful claws. He has hurt her, yet. He hates himself for it. But she isn’t the girl who made pancakes. She just isn’t. So he takes the papers and walks out. As he nears the house, the ambulance pulls out. If she attacks again, they will take her away forever.
