I need to rewrite this story—
but to do that,
I have to leave it in the past.

I tell people I’m divorcing
as if the process
were still happening,
but it’s already done.

I am divorced.

And it’s a leap into the dark,
yet there’s still
a thin nylon thread
tied to me,
wanting to believe
I’ll return to our little house,
our nest,
our love.

I’m going to live
in a small apartment,
letting go of everything
we built together.

And it hurts—
it’s not easy.
It stings like running a marathon
and, just as I thought
I was near the finish line,
realizing I’d taken the wrong exit
and now have to go
all the way back.

I’m too tired
to start over with someone else.

But I shouldn’t think about that now.
I should start over
for me.

I wonder if there’s still hope for us.
If, in the future,
your prayers will be answered.

I admit—
I was shaken.
I always wanted you to be
the spiritual man,
my pastor, my leader,
the priest of our home.

But I learned
you were never that man.

It hurts—
because I left for that reason.
And now you wake
at three in the morning
to pray for us—
because you lost me.

I was valuable,
and I didn’t even know it myself.

Hello, my dear—
it’s been a while.

We lost each other,
found each other,
but I was always here.

Looking back at what we wrote
reminded you
that a path was being built.

But you thought
it was already strong enough
to stand on its own.

Never.

The thing about having a home
is that you’ll always
need to care for it.

I like when you say
you love me—
but tell me, too,
that you like being near me.

Say it clearly.

It seems to hit me harder
than a simple
“I love you.”

I believe that after anger
there is a beautiful place to be—
a place of peace.

Like on a day of heavy rain,
thunder and lightning,
if we could only fly
above the storm,

we would see that the sun
never stopped shining.

It was there all along—
we just couldn’t see it.

I’ve been thinking lately—
I don’t understand how it can be:
literature so full of ornate words,
classical music tangled in
odd notes and fractured rhythms,
bitter wine too dry for
an untrained palate,

and a forest—
dense with trees and shrubs,
all intertwined,
chaotic yet each in its own place.

At first, there is no beauty in these things.
You must train for it—
breathe deeply—
to see that in all this bitterness,
this strangeness,
this confusion,
there lies beauty.

Not beauty in itself,
but in the knowing—
that you must live through it
to move past the first impressions,
and reach that moment of enchantment
that steals your breath,
when your heart beats differently
because it has caught a treasure
most eyes would miss.

The bad wine turns good
once you swallow it.
The forest becomes a clearing
when you walk through it.
The symphony becomes melody
once you learn to respect
the time of things.

Yes—appreciation is
respecting the time of things.

Sometimes you must read a text
and let it settle into you.
Sometimes you must listen to music
and let the notes caress you
until your eyes fill with tears.
Sometimes you must taste
the “bad” wine
to dismantle your own walls.