Letting Go

Just when I think we're done
That everything is separated
That you have what is yours
Anything that is left is mine
I turn around and find
Something else staring back at me
Will there always be one more thing
Sometimes I wonder if this will ever be done
Finished with this separating of property
I never realized we had
So much stuff intertwined
In every room of the house

And just when I think I'm done
Writing poetry to you or
About this phase of my life
Something happens and I get the feeling
Then I find myself here again
At the computer, typing out these words
Into lines, into stanzas, into poems
And I wonder will I ever be done
Will this be the last poem written for you
I know the reason for them now
Is because this is the end of us
And there are a lot of feelings
That still need to be sorted through
And then I have to deal with letting go

Then it hits me, that we've been letting go
For a long time, for five years now
I realize that it's been done in stages
You and I have let go
A little bit here and a little bit there
We didn't let go of each other all at once
It's been done slowly and gradually
Is it any less painful that way
Maybe that's why I keep finding
One more thing that belongs to you
Or why I write one more poem for you

All I know is that it's taken a long time
To simply get to this point
The point of letting go

5.29.03

CMT

Author's Notes

Wolfmoon had come by the house to take one last look around for anything that might be hers. We also finally separated the slides from the vacation we'd taken to Lake Tahoe. There were six trays to go through. We'd had quite the slide show from that trip, which we'd taken on the road to show (or bore) our families and friends.

I had her look through the shed, through the CDs, through the book shelves, and through the box of wedding pictures and related items that I'd packed away three years ago. She took her champagne glass and, to my surprise, a framed photo of us from the wedding. I was glad that she'd taken at least one of those pictures. I realized afterward that I really wanted her to take something from that box because it made me feel that we had been important enough to her to keep one last picture of us on our wedding day.

But after she left, I turned around and saw an item that she'd forgotten to take, and something else that I'd forgotten to ask her about. As I stood there in the kitchen, a few of the lines in the poem started running through my head, so I sat down at the computer and wondered.