...they hadn't wanted it

Before Time Altered Them

They were full of sadness at their parting.
They hadn't wanted it: circumstances made it necessary.
The need to earn a living forced one of them
to go far away -New York or Canada.
The love they felt wasn't, of course, what it once had been;
the attraction between them had gradually diminished,
the attraction had diminished a great deal.
But to be separated, that wasn't what they wanted.
It was circumstances. Or maybe Fate
appeared as an artist and decided to part them now,
before their feeling died out completely, before Time altered
them
the one seeming to remain for the other always what he was,
the good-looking young man of twenty-four.

Constantine P. Cavafy

[In the years after my parents' divorce, I found this poem, bookmarked by my mother in a translation of Kavafi poems. It still makes me cry to read it. I am afraid of pain, but I am more afraid of ignoring its existence.]