“What a Pretty Bride,” They Said

Prose Poetry

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

when love was something like a treasure, I gifted you my hand of promise across a threshold of what we thought were our dreams for a life together

“what a pretty bride,” they said as they clinked their glasses for an opening toast

when you said you wanted me forever, I thought there was nothing more miraculous than your smile becoming my sun cresting over the horizon

“what a pretty bride,” they said when I threw the bouquet to the next woman who might become a madwoman in the name of love

when you kissed me for the first time, I felt the fireworks and the butterflies in this careful trap you had laid for me — all the more borrowed from a world that told me I needed someone to love me for me to know my true worth

“what a pretty bride,” they said when we ran to the car to get away from the onlookers who had watched us for hours in our mini globe of seeming marital bliss

but all the fairy tales could never have prepared me for all the arguments — the times when we could barely stand to look at each other, those moments when our throats ran raw from the vile words we threw at each other — and losing you might have felt like a relief rather than a disappointment