Ever After

The poem I decided to read was "Ever After" by ''Joyce Sutphen''. After reading it out loud for who knows how many times to get the meaning of it, piece by piece, it started to make sense. But, I was still curious about some parts, as how the first stanza was worded. "What am I to you now that you are no longer what you used to be to me?''. Maybe I am reading too fast and not taking the time to really read between the lines to see what it means, but it does not make sense to me. Somehow, I feel like it means that the author is referring to (which I have possibly concluded to the husband, since the author is a woman) is not the same person they used to be when they were together as a whole? Or maybe the wife feels like the husband has changed how he feels about her and everything towards her? It is intriguing to depict what she is referring to, or maybe I am just way too deep into just that one sentence.

As the poem went on, it starts to show that a possible divorce had taken place, or that the couple are so distant that they do not even know what they are considered, anymore. As the author goes on, she says ''words we rarely used (husband, wife) as when we once posed (so young and helpless) with our hands (yours, mine) clasped on the knife that was sinking into the tall white cake.'' , I feel like that could potentially mean that while they were younger (assuming they were in their teens or early 20's/30's), they were so helplessly in love with each other and knew where they were heading in life. But, earlier in the poem, it discusses how everything had been basically falling apart, and how ''...there is no us'', and ''...we once were is divided into me and you who are not one but two separate and unrelated persons except for that ex-...''. From those lines, I can assume that either their marriage fell apart by the ''there is no us'', but the marriage could possibly still be there, but the two people that got married are not there. Their thoughts, actions, emotions, things that sum up who they are are not present in the marriage, thus they are not two people, anymore. They are ''two separate and unrelated persons...''. But, why the ''ex-'' part? Is there an ex that could have taken the place of the author and that is why the marriage is not present, anymore? 

The poem makes sense, then turns in a different direction to make you think, as in the ''ex-'' part, that made me go off course (or just anyone in general reading the poem), and ascends back to the point where the author and the person they were with had something in the past, but that has all changed dramatically and they are not who they were, anymore. The poem is very interesting, and it made me think between the lines quite a bit, I just hope I am not reading too much into the lines that I have disregarded what they author is really referring to.