After Divorce

(8-24 October 1992) after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Acceptance is denial, love is loss, in this mixed up world, what can you do? I am an attraction away from a center where you cannot glue together what your unwilling parents have broken. From your point of view, your parents are for your benefit, not their own. They should have no happiness except for you. When they agree, they should agree for you. When they fight, they should fight to please you more than the other can. To divorce without your permission was bad enough, but for your mother to marry me questions your preeminence. This is why you can’t accept it, even though love isn’t always giving without getting, it isn’t attachment, it isn’t unchanging. I love your mother more than pain can kill. By hating me you’re learning how to love.