Pelvis

"I'd leave you if you were paralyzed,"
she said after telling me about a distant
cousin who'd grown bitter due to her
decision to stay with her husband
who'd been crippled in a car accident a few
weeks before his thirtieth birthday.
"She has to do everything for him.
They can't even make love anymore."

Funny. She was always so naively innocent
except for in that moment. Marriage never
came up between us, let alone divorce.
My response didn't seem to matter much.

"Yeah. I guess I'd want you to."
The words felt easier to say then
than they are to think about now.
Should I have seen the maelstrom forming?
The bourbon. The razors. The dropping out of school.
But that's another story that I'm tired of telling...

Back to that paraplegic matter.
It was one of those conversations
you have in passing
that sticks out in your mind
years later
because the person fell
out of character
and the topic seems more severe with age.
What is love? Staying or leaving?
Preserving the love you've had
by knowing when to go
or sticking in the ring until the last bell tolls?

Ben got it right: it's watching someone die.
Watching.
Any fraud could turn their eyes.