They gave me a number.
A respondent.
A former spouse.
As though love
could be archived
between staples
and sworn signatures.
My name appears
over and over,
but nowhere
does it say
how many nights
I stayed awake
counting fevers
instead of hours,
how grief
moved into our home
long before
either of us moved downstairs,
or how motherhood
never fit
inside a numbered paragraph.
They wrote,
“Chynna told me she didn’t love me anymore.”
As if endings
arrive in a single sentence.
As if love
doesn’t disappear
one silence at a time.
The court received
an affidavit.
I carried
a lifetime.
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