The Poem I Wrote on the Back of My Divorce Papers
The pen was already in my hand. So was the truth.
I signed the divorce papers on a Tuesday, in a lawyer's office, with a pen that was already in my hand. The papers were on the desk, the signature was on the line, and the truth was in the pen.
I wrote a poem on the back of the papers, the way you write a poem when the words are already in your hand and the truth is already in your heart. I wrote about the way the marriage had ended, not with a fight but with a slow fade, the way a photo fades when you leave it in the sun.
I wrote about the way the house had become two houses, the way the bed had become two beds, the way the life we had built had become a life we were sharing. I wrote about the way the divorce was not an ending but a beginning, the way the ending was not the end but the thing that made the beginning possible.
I didn't send it. I folded it into the papers and I handed them back to the lawyer and I walked out of the office and I was free. The poem is in the file now, the proof that the ending was the beginning.
I don't know if the lawyer ever read it. I don't know if they kept it or threw it away or filed it with the rest of the papers. But the poem is there, on the back of the papers, the truth that was in the pen.
By Team Writory, for Writory.
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