Random poem of abandonment

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

Well, thing is I don’t.

Put your fingers and toes away and sit back down.

He is eating the dinner I have cooked at the table I have cleaned.

He is my husband, but he is no longer my lover.

He is the father of my child

A name on a form, on an envelope

A memory in a photograph encased within a frame given to us as a wedding present

He is pulling on my heart strings and wrapping them tightly around my throat

I don’t think I love you anymore, he said

He said, I just want to be on my own

And where does that leave me

I am leaving me behind in a house where he sleeps alone

Where he flinches at my touch, remains emotionless and rigid at the thought of me putting my arms around him in the way which we always used to

Lazily, without thinking I stroke his hair and he moves silently away

Without thinking, without talking

He has stopped talking to me as if I am his wife

I am a housekeeper to be tolerated until I can remove myself

I am slowly getting out of his life

Bit by bit I am fading away into the background

A distant memory of devotion

A random poem of abandonment