To Jeremy, my ex-husband,

When I loved you

I had enough to last me our lifetime.

I know this because I had been collecting it

Like shells from the traveled shores of my life.

This love was one of my most precious belongings

And all of it I lovingly gave to you.

When we broke

I resisted.

My love for you, pried out of my hands clenched white.

My love for you, sliced in and hacked out of my quivering heart

As if in surgery without anesthetic

Or consent.

Then I broke

Open in anger

And in grief

The emptying of my love for you

Has been like the scattering of seeds;

The seeds of the children and the future we never made

Each birthed in searing grief and aching pain,

Alone, without you

Watered for years with the intermittent salty tears

Of broken love

These seeds, well wished and blown kisses by the lips that used to know yours.

Those seeds I have left uncollected,

And I have let them

Fall into the earth, float down the rivers, and fly into the winds

Out of my control

Releasing love to multiply

For you

Towards you

To find you.

This love cannot belong to me anymore

What is birthed cannot go back

What multiples has momentum

It lives on without me

For you

Towards you

To find you

Like shells on the shores of your future.

This love

Perhaps in the form of another

I hope will become your most precious belonging.