The Leaving Poem

This is the leaving poem.
This is where the secrets
of my departure
are revealed—
the bra I tuck
between folds
of your favorite jeans;
the pictures
I protect from
falling tears
as I pack them;
the twenty dollars
I take from the wallet
in your sock drawer
because you owe me
you owe me—
not money
but this’ll just have to do;
the toothbrush I think about
sticking in the toilet
but don’t because the hate
is a superficial cut in the love
and will take time to fester.

This is the leaving poem.
This is where I cry on the bed
my face buried in a shirt
I’ve pulled from your hamper,
where I roll in the stink
of our rotten dead love
like a stupid dog
whose owners have to bathe him
like my friends will have to
cleanse me of you
tonight
with four chocolate martinis
at a place you sometimes go
on Saturday nights
so we can rub your nose
in my giddiness.

This is the leaving poem,
but all you see are
empty drawers and bare walls;
a picture of us with me cut out,
you stuck to the headboard
with a dart;
air so angry that it sucks
every other beat
from your heart;
sock drawer left cockeyed,
which makes you count
the money in your wallet
and say that bitch quietly
because you think
I have taken much
much more
than I have
and I have
I have.


- - - -

I wrote and rewrote this poem yesterday and today in response to a poem I read yesterday on a poetry forum. I wanted to show how the topic of leaving, which has been done to death—especially by young female poets—could be made fresh and new with voice. It was originally a bulletin board post response, but when I saw what was happening, I cut it out of my post and began crafting it. Around the middle of the second stanza, where I realized I was falling prey to the same cliché of smelling the ex-lover's clothing or bed linens, I became a dog—always a good ploy for the dogfaceboy. And then the last stanza unfolded, slowly, those last lines remaining on the tip of my tongue for much of the morning, until they come out just as they should.

Read this one out loud. It's powerful out loud.

Happy Anniversary to my husband of twelve years, who was, prior to our wedding, my boyfriend of twelve years, whom I am not leaving. Not yet.