What were you doing,
in those years of stillness,
while I carried the weight alone?

How could you sleep
in the warmth of our bed,
knowing I spent eight years
cold on the floor of the den?

What value did you bring
to this hollow marriage,
while I gave, and you took,
until there was nothing left?

Fourteen years;
you took it all,
and now, in the silence of “after,”
you want even more.

Why no passion?
No spark beyond the glow of the TV?
Was there never anything inside you
but emptiness?

You tried to twist my reflection,
cast me as the villain,
the bad father, the bad husband,
but your words, untruthful.

Why didn’t you work?
Was your paper degree
just another thing left to dust?

Why that awful tone,
and why care so much
for the judgment of strangers,
when I stood beside you, unseen?

What do you even tell them;
those who ask why I left?

And what of our daughter?
What will she think
of this shattered past,
these unanswered questions?

Can you just leave me
with this silence, the peace;
and move on?

— Sincerely, Boris