Understanding
My friend’s dead eyes tell me her parents are getting divorced.
And I paused for a long second…Because I thought I was going to sneeze.
I mean, PLEASE
It’s a bummer of course
But this is not the end of the world.
“It’s the end of mine” she sighs
As far as I know, a divorce is not a terminal illness
“It’s not an illness or an accident, but it is trauma”
DRAMA!
You are thinking of this all wrong
What if it’s a good thing?
Their guilt will gild the halls of your heart
You’ll get two birthdays now,
And two Christmases, more with grandparents – practically Hanukkah!
I’d rather have one, she said
I’m dead.
Come on!
You will be the prize, prioritized
The star in their new solo solar systems
Then I will be the reminder, she said, the gravity that won’t let them go
So?
She is choosing to be a black hole
And yes, change is hard, but so is standing still in a storm
Don’t you want them to be happy?
And she’s quiet for a long second
Maybe she has to sneeze too
But instead her mouth starts to move
Wordless and wandering
then it closes
Which I think means I’m right
Until her ears close up tight and she says
I hope you never understand
And I genuinely believe she is being crazy
So I go home
where my parents were waiting
“We have something to tell you” they said
And suddenly
I understood everything
About this poem
I didn't understand what my friend was going through when her parents got divorced. I wish I never learned, but in some ways I'm glad that the universe gave me her as a lighthouse in the storm. This is for you, Asia!
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Written on January 12, 2024
Submitted on March 23, 2024
- 1:24 min read
- 1 View
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XA A XXX XBB XCXXBD XXXX XX E XX XCX XXXE X CDEC |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,363 |
Words | 282 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 1, 3, 3, 6, 4, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 4 |
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"Understanding" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/183578/understanding>.
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