An Ode to D

Your bait and switch wife

As a woman, I felt betrayed
As a woman, I feel like betraying
She doesn’t deserve the title
She doesn’t deserve the gift
Of all that was supposed to make us tough and soft and maternal
She roped you in

Spinning a web of lies with the length you would tie into a noose
An escape
How to leap out the window and not evaporate on the ground

But you found alcohol

For your scratched skin

And your hoarse throat

And even after everything was sanitized
It was all still dirty
And you kept drinking

Behind the wheel

In the office

While your daughter did puzzles on the floor

And if we are our choices

What happens in abuse?
When the hands that once held your face with a vow

Drag nails into your skin

No one knows what goes on behind closed doors

Not even the ghosts of the people you used to be

Here’s to the bad name givers

And the Gone Girl praisers

If you saw your reflection, you’d turn to stone

But you broke the mirror when you threw his phone at it