Alternative Ending (Poetry)

They sit there in their easy chairs
the TV on to fill the room
with chitchat — lend faux jolly airs
and so disguise the chilly gloom.

They do not bicker, never fight
they hardly interact at all
but when they do they stay polite
there’s no attempt to scale the wall

they’ve built between them stone on stone
and added to each passing year —
a can’t-be-mentioned no-go zone
some joint agreement mapped out clear.

If there was love at one point past
Time turned it into a cold war
this fragile truce doomed not to last
might be more than they bargained for.

They slump in worn-out chairs and doze
each dreaming of a different life
where he is not the the one she chose
and someone else became his wife.