Monday, August 17, 2020

Gone, not forgotten

Marriage doesn't really make much of a story.

Maybe the beginning,
with the drama 
of which relative is most likely to get drunk and create a scene
at the wedding
or whether the faux neo-Gothic church 
or barefoot on a beach is the better setting;

maybe the end,
with the drama and the tears 
over which betrayal was the worst;

but the middle is just the daily, unending grind of life -
working, 
paying bills,
doing laundry,
watching the sun rise and set,
bumping up against the sharp edges and dull plains 
of someone a whole gender different than you.

Sharing the mundane middle 
is still what I miss the most.

And even now, 
decades after my marriage ceased to exist,
I have moments of seeing it on the horizon as it recedes further -
as if cruising along in fog,
across a vast expanse of sea;
and I
squinting,
watch as it fades completely
into the realm of 
all that used to be and is no longer.

Few people remember who I was then;
which is not surprising
since I barely remember myself.

First you have one sort of life

and then you have another.




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