Pearls

Opening the divorce file

of all past grievances,

I see how I kept 

casting my pearls before swine.

My first husband never saw me

or appreciated my luster 

made from love’s lack 

as anything more than 

opportunistic narcissistic supply

raining beauty from heaven 

he could wallow and swallow.

He used my early suffering

To ease his own.

I have kept these files

for my own wallowing,

scared to confront the pain,

the black hole of anguish

at the center of my life.

Can I not appreciate others’ love?

Or was it really just not there,

at least not how I wanted,

as just for me as I am

in all my shining beauty

surrounding irritating grit.

Or did I just idealize his beauty

enshrined in lustrous song?

Like a Stockholm-syndrome hostage,

I betrayed my own child

longing for love

in order to fawn like a dog

for some crumbs 

falling from the table of plenty

that others enjoyed

while I tried to avoid

getting kicked from below

when I rebelled 

and bit ankles.

Ironically, I justified it all

to protect the children.

Yet years later, here I am

returning to my own

journalistic vomit

of past grievances

against a now-dead mate

whose sudden death 

was instant liberation

in the story of an hour

when the prisoner,

long dungeon-bound in darkness,

blinked stunned by light.

I still have trouble

staying out in uncomfortable sunshine.

I have well plumbed 

the dark well of complicated grief.

Yet I keep striving to attain

the unattainable unreached,

cloaking myself in darkness

of old computer files

when outside the light beckons

on this unseasonably warm day

marking the anniversary

of his heart-rending death 

I don’t want to grieve anymore. 

After all, it’s not him I miss.

It’s what I missed with him.

So I will not pretend any longer

to be the good long-suffering widow

by posting Facebook tributes

to our love’s rarely-happy ending 

so that I can look good

like a fairy-tale princess

rescued by some prince

that we all want to be true

but isn’t. 

Like all pearls, his charming beauty

was predicated upon frustrating sand

that crumbles 

through the hourglass of time.

Now I choose instead

to caress the pearls

my new husband gave me,

restoring my faith 

in love’s eternal resurrection,

as I hug our Golden 

before bounding off 

into this gift of a day

with clear-eyed sight

that nothing is ever perfect,

just good,

and that what’s good 

may still not be for me.