Imagining Elizabeth Gilbert's Situation

In English, it’s called divorce.

One life is sliced into two

after the hard work of forcing

the two together to begin with.

But in my basic Italian

all I could think to say was:

Abbiamo rotto –

We broke it.

How could I begin to explain

all the reasons we didn’t work,

how we drifted apart and

how you refused to admit it?

How could I begin to explain

that I’d already drifted so far overseas,

my mind and heart wandering to new places

and not content to be trapped here,

on cold sheets in a new house

thinking about the children that I didn’t want?

Italian was too beautiful to taint with our story

and that simple phrase worked well enough

because after everything, we were so broken

and the damage was irreparable. After everything

it was nice to only have those two words between us.

About the author: Kate is a writer, wife, mom of two pups and a full-time RVer. She has experienced loss and grief. Kate has found healing through her writing.