You are a wall and a door slammed into my face.
We had built our common homes for years.
Yet that home was a prison to you.
I don’t understand the desperate escape.

You are a book that was slammed closed.
We had written beautiful words together over the years.
We were writing a story together but you crumpled the paper.
I don’t understand why.

I know you have found others to be with.
We were tender together but it must have been an act.
Your caresses were for an imagined other and not me.
I don’t understand how.

It  started with another man.
You claimed you never started until you left me.
But marriage is a contract (but so were the vows)
I don’t understand why words lack meaning for you.

Your need to be with others was always an expressed regret
The family was stifling for you and acquaintances your oxygen
Wine nights, long calls with friends you felt were fickle, all were important
I don’t understand when I stopped being your friend (but I did).

Your sadness is audible.
You mention crying in public and barely holding it together.
I wanted to grow and support you as I depended on you.
I don’t understand how you can give up so completely.

I don’t need to understand.
I feel bad that you are suffering and that you have rejected love
I feel bad as I watch our children see the secrets envelop you.
I don’t need to understand.

I forgive you and will care about you as a soul I once knew.
I remember the past as a wonderful play that I had a role in.
I embrace the now and my future without you.
I will understand.