Separate

He didn’t see her dissolving

the joy of her diminishing

too busy with proposals, contracts,

he came home late, left early

ate food she prepared, read the newspaper

spoke only to fill a void

didn’t notice red eyes

tissues, how she slept too much

Although he thought her lazy.

She’d changed, wrapped up in nothing,

He thought, if he thought.

He was busy. Too busy.

She’d changed. He called her nasty.

In the dark, alone, she cried

feeling future days swept away

she’d never reached out before.

She didn’t reach out now.

9 thoughts on “Separate

  1. Well written, Sascha, lot of lovely phrasing, dissolving, diminishing, swept away and so on. I don’t know why, but I feel an urge to say that I have never behaved like that. As you’ve implied, it does take two for that situation to continue. I think that such silent suffering rarely happens with Latin women. I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned, but long ago, I was leaving to work at university on the weekend, and as I walked by outside, a nameless someone in our first floor apartment tipped a bucket of soapy water on my head . This gets the message across.

  2. Nice comment, Steve. I threw a drink on someone once–that seemed to get his attention. Women, in general, do like to suffer.

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