I found this poem on a scrap of newspaper tucked inside a book on my grandparent’s shelf. Almost every one of their (hundreds of) books had stuff like this inside, so going through their home after they passed away took quite a while. But this poem was one of my favorite finds, and I like knowing that it struck a similar chord with my Papa and/or Grandma.

Recovery

I who loved you mightily
Now approach you quietly.
I who was all heat and pain
Am become myself again.

Little does it trouble me
Where you walk, or whom you see,
What you say the long day through.
I am far removed from you.

Now the whips that lashed me sore
Have no power any more,
And the countless knives you fling
Do not cut enough to sting

I have left you, and gone on,
Seeking now a different dawn;
Free of love and free of pain,
Free to be myself again.

-E.S.