a poem by Mary-Abigail Caglione
What happens after?
The bags are packed,
Your last-child moves.
Moms are home alone,
Dads go to work.
Life goes on, but
Some things do not.
It’s the kitchen fights,
The slamming doors.
The defensive and
defenseless.
The dry conversations,
The offensive jokes
You wish weren’t true.
Tears in the pillow,
Or the extra glass of wine.
I used to ask myself...
Would I be friends with you?
Would I respect the way you speak?
I always knew to
Pay attention to what people say,
Especially when they are mad.
They have been waiting to say that.
To you.
For a while.
It’s the Christmas parties that keep you alive.
The gas station rose that he buys.
He tries so hard yet cannot explain.
And she doesn’t try at all.
It’s the dishes covered in stains.
The laundry never folded.
And when the kids come home,
The rose petal is molded,
The dishes are done,
Laundry is folded.
It’s the photo albums that make you cry, and
You wish happy tears were the reason why.
You wonder how things have changed.
She said for better or for worse,
He said for richer or poorer.
But 18 years later,
Words do not have the same meaning.
It’s the mid-life crisis.
When he won’t talk
Neither will she.
The awkward conversation becomes normal.
The two, three, four glasses of wine
Become normal.
The dog is sad.
He wonders where everyone went.
His life is forever shortened without love.
The dog trembles every night.
The new neighbors walk by,
They wonder why
The house isn’t the same.
It was beautiful when a couple lived there before.
The trees were green and flowers bloomed.
The garden was filled with birth flowers.
A flower the mother would watch.
That flower would now be her daughter.
The daughter who lets the rose petals mold.
The daughter who leaves the laundry unfolded.
She lived in that house.
The beautiful one everyone loved,
But that one flower turned to wisteria.
I matter because I am the daughter
Who sits and watches for the day
That this will be over.