PONDERING

If you had told me that he would
disappear from my life, cut me off 
like a stray string on a worn garment...

I would have called you a liar
told you that you were delusional
that he and I--no matter what--
would always be connected, 
that we would always be friends

I would have said Love is stronger
than the grave, that we would die
rather than let each other go,
that we belonged to each other
in this lifetime and to not be friends--
FRIENDS--would be blasphemous

I would have told you that gratitude 
alone would keep us in each other's
lives; that my getting into a car
and driving almost nonstop to 
support him and his partner would 
at least make him pick up the phone
if I called; that he would not
disdain/despise my voice
treat it like something that grates
across his heart, making him ill

I don't understand the sanctimonious
meanness... the notion that somehow
I, and I alone, transgressed some
boundary that led to hell and therefore
there is no way back. It is hell, and
he sealed the door on the other side
never saying, but certainly demonstrating,
that he means to see me suffer

I'm pondering how one goes
from endearing words to silence meant to kill?
I don't get it. I'll never understand it.
I will ponder this enigma
until the day I die.

© Valerie Bridgeman
November 29, 2013