Remember when we met at your divorce lawyer’s office
and your lawyer came out and invited us in by saying
jovially
”Okay! Mr. And Mrs.!”
like it was our first public appearance after marriage

That was weird.

But also there was that time before we headed in to his office
when it felt
so weird
to be
becoming strangers
I looked at you as you opened the glass doors and said
as lightly as I could –
Wanna just forget all this and move to some tiny house on an island somewhere?

And you looked at me and said
No.

We divorced at the end of a pandemic,
masks on
gloves off
you read me a speech about all the things I’d done wrong
all the ways I was a bad mom
a bad wife
a bad spender
I took a break in the other room to cry
Later you would say,
I never got to finish saying all the things I wanted to say.

I tried to avoid looking at you as much as possible
but when our eyes met
across the lawyer’s table
over masks
I pretended mine had lasers
and I shot you with as much
anger, disappointment, hatred as I could
Later my therapist would break it to me
Hate isn’t the opposite of love
Indifference is