When he shattered my remains
The vase broke into shards
That spoke louder than trite words
In that crystallised moment
I know that his ways are not semi
Just permanent ink
Inscribed in my marble
His soul was dark
Those eyes remote
Uncaring laughter
My cringe and anger
Nothing to bridge
I turned back into myself
Found my own way
His path laden with thistle
A voice sounded like thunder
Promise and unknown
The enemies lay at my feet
His ego was the epitome
The last palace in his soul
I saw him erect, bold and beautiful
This man who has no love
It ran like sand out to sea
What I did not understand
How these shifted
Quick and slow
Churning
No outstretched hand
The wedding ring lay off his conscience
So my consciousness rose
Like the blush of a flower
My cheeks my own
This dark thing of beauty
Becomes a screw tightening
I am myself and he stands alone
In the jet black curls
Of the remains of youth
Pillaged in a fireplace
Where I sent my love
In the days after
As the beginning of the end
Painted the night to a close
Now that I am just a woman
Not his lover
Or a friend
Afraid of vulnerability
Bravery still cloaked my bones
I am my mother's daughter
I possess strength and resolve
These twisted guts
Laid on fresh stones
So hard for me to believe
Where the lament lies
How long I lasted
Cast aside
Like discarded clothes
His masculinity, too
Starved by him
Many years of pain
Torment carved into my tree
Not the interwoven
Initials of S and R
On the beggary of his love
Rhythm of mothering
Sustain and remorse
Echoing like children
Who I birthed
Close in age
Like morse code
These blessings of life
Carry me alive only
What drags on from today
Is a toll and resonant sound
It gathers a threatening message
The funeral of a friend
Now that he is trans
Who am I
Without him
Is a void
I will be able
With any remains of strength
To stand on the inscription of
The former world
Of him and I
Bisexuality and this great divide
As breathtaking
Valour reveals my true feelings
About love, loss and fraud
I have found myself in the process
For feminists have deep roots
He is a coward
With shallow views
Of what women are
When I married I sought to
Marry my equal
Not a pale version
Of being a good person
In his mind he rides his own boat
These swells of arrogance
That show his cards
Laid down
He is a joke and
A joker in one
Not I
I am Semper Fidelis
He broke up my careful dreams
Like cutting a pie crust
Digging into the filling
With male relish
Finally and begrudgingly
He told me his new body
New sexuality
Predates our marriage
This die was cast in doom
Rewriting our vows
Now
To fit his own agenda
This narrative I reject
I refuse to accept
This is the stance
Defiance lines my spine
After years of trying to be
The person he required
As he changed each tune
I am a dancer
In the middle of a bog
Suspended by pressure
My dew was fresh and pure
Now that I have fallen
Into a fire
The privilege of being
My husband
Carries no weight
I am beset with grief
Disbelief rakes my older face
Only tears barely break
In this moment
Lashes are my only recent memory
Laid on my selfhood
He is a tempest of destruction
The greed of his needs
Overshadowed those of his kids
I stand corrected
I am the past glory
Or a vassal
He expects to come running
Now that the Spring awakens
My tired body
Stirs on as before
Where the day holds joy
Only if I bring it in
Clouds sift through
My mind
Until I clear it of him
Where is my safety
The net I misplaced
I need only love
This blanket I wrap
Around my kids
Crafted by my great-grandmother's hand
There is nowhere near
Trust or truth
The bitterness overcomes
A sweet smell of blossoms
That flirt with the British sun
There is no tonic
That can relieve abject misery
Now that the season has shifted
He is a worm
Glutton on my soil
He infiltrated my body
My life's work and time
Time lost
The big interior of empty
Is so wide
It pains like a splinter
Slipped on my ring finger
Now shed of commitment
I command myself to break down
The tether of his fate
Set to drown out
My feelings and needs
Are my own
Last month and next week
For all times to dawn
The frolicking taste of
My new freedom
Now that he is a she
This is the venom
Dark disease of lies
For twenty years of us
As partners and allies
Grownups came into our own
And five years of living
As boy and girl
Teenagers are lofty
Found each other so young
Only he can know
What he is
How he will be
His bleaching effect of the sun
Fell on my own bones
Laid down lower
So he can travel with his
Epiphany of being feminine
While cravenly clinging
To his male form
That he will not shed
Because male privilege
Is more valuable than being a girl
This is the best truth
That I can ever receive
As I have always
Known in recent years
That he will cut me
Deeper than deep
And longer than cruelty that
Escapes from his lungs
His honeymoon of sexual frivolity
Now I can be me and
He can walk the desert
Of nowhere
That serves as his home
No fixed compass to lead
This ridiculous quest
A fantastic pledge
To destroy all that we had
Could have possessed
As one