Infidelity Killed the Cat

I often reminisce

about the times my parents

kissed. And laughed.

And slept in the same room.

I think of those times

my dad looked in my eyes and told me

I looked just like my mother.

I was nine when he stopped

saying those things,

and I was nine when she stopped

wearing her ring. And they both stopped

speaking

in perpetual hyperbole.

She wasn’t always going to be there

like the scar on his nose.

He wasn’t going to love her

until the mountains blew like leaves.

He wasn’t her every thought. She wasn’t his.

And that’s okay.

It’s okay.

I just can’t help but wonder

if he still thinks of her when he looks at

me. Perhaps he sees the pastor who practiced

what he didn’t preach.

Maybe he sees infidelity. And deceit.

And everything my mother carried with her.

Maybe every glimpse is a stitch ripped out

of his once healing but now bleeding heart,

and every glance resurrects the pain

of losing an unparalleled love.

But I am not her mistakes.

I am mine.

And he will see me for the things that

I am

rather than the things that

she used to be.