I have a good friend who
likes to say that divorce is
the worst thing you can experience.
He has never married, we all
note, and wonder if it is because
of a fear of divorce or of failure.
Those of us who have been
through the sausage mill that is
more than a metaphor for divorce
would tell him that divorce
is a return to breath, a weight
suddenly lifted from your chest,
a freedom you thought was lost.
We would tell him, to no end
really, that it is the slow death
that divorce finally pronounces
that is the worst thing you
will experience, for you are
halfway into the marital grave
often before you realize
that the marriage is ill,
much less terminally so.