IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK

The Quiet Undoing

A poem

Photo by on

You told me
even the unforgivable could be excused
if it came wearing anyone else’s face —
and the foundation cracked beneath me.

I kept trying to grout the cracks
to make the house whole with hands already blistered
from holding up apologies
you never meant to give.

I brought my daughters into the hollow echo of home.
Taught them love sounded like
silences louder than war.
They learned to read my face like weather.

You, master illusionist,
You made me doubt mirrors.
Made me believe I broke them —
when all I did was bend to meet you.

I almost stayed.
Because I believed if I just got smaller,
you might finally fit me in your heart.

I left with less than I came with.
And still,
you tried to sit in my quiet — uninvited,
silent as rot in the beams.

Now, I am on the sting of survival.
patched together
by my daughters’ laughter,
so they won’t have to unlearn
what I had to.