He left on a Friday, the eleventh day, the eleventh month.
Our armistice signed, our pact complete
the day he took his leave.
He took his college journals, the rainbow scarf, a shelf full of books,
his prep-school letter-sweater and left an
illegitimate grief.
It's a shameful thing to love a violent man, more shameful still
to grieve his going, take time to mourn an
unacknowledged loss.
He woke me in the night to shout at me for some imagined slight.
He kicked the dog down the basement steps,
left bruises on my arms.
I never read his college journals, seldom wore the rainbow scarf,
darned his letter-sweater, and denied the
constancy of my fear.
I tried to leave so many times, but decided instead to stay,
and calculate raw probabilities
of death and of dying.
It seems so foolish now, absurd, but the chance he'd kill my children,
if I left, was stacked against the odds that
I would die, should I stay.
I'm well rid, better off without, my father, brothers, friends, proclaim.
I agree, and I alone am burdened by this
illegitimate grief.
Author's Note: I wrote this after being asked to contemplate loss and bereavement as an exercise for a course that I am taking. I realised that few of my friends or family were comfortable with me grieving or even recognising this particular loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment