the homewrecker

ever so damaged is the party who put all their eggs in the basket,
make-believing that because two share a mutual roof,
that no more effort needs to be made &
that maybe because a contract now exists,
that no more effort needs to be made &
that because all the friends of one are the friends of the other,
that no more effort needs to be made &
maybe if they acted naively rash in the beginning &
children got dragged into this picture,
that still,
no more effort needs to be made.

when another party comes into the picture,
they are allowed in because there is a hole in the wall---
water was flushing through in little spits,
but at first, the river stayed flowing in the direction that it
had been thought to be flowing,
given all the contextual cues,
but the parties involved did not spend any time trying to bandage this new cut &
no one even got down close enough to the hole in the wall
to try & plug it with even so much as their own thumb.

events follow like the plot in a poorly written film,
where hopes & dreams are now traded in for self-fulfilling prophecy,
with one party playing “the hurt card” & the other playing the
“fed up card,”
as the blame game begins, the roof over each of them is up for grabs &
as the blame game begins, the contract between them gets torn to shreds &
as the blame game begins, the mutual friends disown them both (sick of listening to them) &
as the blame game continues, if there are children involved, their lives now take on a whole new inventory of nightmares.

as the threads of the sweater once thought new & wondrous
slowly pull apart & the design of the whole thing becomes frayed &
destroyed,
hate is directed at the party who cares about one of those now
deteriorating,
ironic that the effort being made is by the “homewrecker”
who with bandages in hand & a face full of experience,
is more than ready to pick up the pieces or at least provide something momentarily positive
amidst the ensuing chaos.