"Getting Out" by Cleopatra Mathis

After reading Cleopatra Mathis’ poem, “Getting out,” the title relates to the poem and its topic quite well. While the end of the poem results in a breakup between to people, the three stanzas describe the various aspects that led to that end. Getting out if something implies a process, and that’s exactly what Mathis’ stanzas do - describe the process of this breakup. Mathis writes, “Every night, another refusal, the silent work of tightening the heart,” (Mathis, 896). From this phrase, the reader can gather that, regardless of what they did to prevent it, the couple slowly fell farther and farther apart as their hearts tightened a bit more every day. The second stanza discusses how things were or used to be. However, when the happiness was replaced with blame and disagreement, things fell apart. Even at the end, when there was so little of their relationship left, the couple in the poem was still upset to leave each other. In today’s world, we hear so many stories about violent and detrimental divorces which are upsetting, but the slow decline in the relationship of this poem actually saddened me even more. It truly seems as though the people in the poem really tried to make their relationship last, but it just was not meant to be. The idea that regardless of whether people want their relationship to last, it just might not, is truly the most saddening part of life represented in this poem.