i was someone's wife

there is a sliver somewhere in the world where i am your wife. i married you at 18, never went to college, and rotted in your parents home in texas. i make you tea every morning, sew you dresses, brush your hair. i listen to you yearn to move to hollywood and become an actress and write for the great directors. if it were a life with anyone else, i might enjoy it. but picturing it with you squeezes the air from my lungs and makes my knees begin to shake.

there is no moral to this story, you thought of me as your hippie girlfriend, always in the woods, kissing gate trees, collecting leaves and listening to the birds. you spoke endlessly at me about your dreams, how you’ll change your last name and we’ll get married in october and decorate the cake with spiders. (i hate spiders) 

and this was when i knew what it was like to be a housewife: trapped in an idyllic prison. i ignored your calls, got lost in the woods, knitted you a sweater, hoping the curse was true. had i become your wife, i would have cut my hair and clung to your arm at the showing of your debut. i would have sequestered myself in your bedroom with the singular mirror and watched myself whither until i was nothing but a husk. i would have taken ketamine, morphine, barbitol, valerian, to escape your unending chatter. 

and i thank god i left you before our wedding day, so i would never have to utter the words: i was someone’s wife.