I have given fragments of myself to people
who have only broken them into smaller pieces;
at this point my skeleton is made more of paper
thin apologies and not actual bones so when
I become an avalanche of emotions I've convinced
myself I don't feel and anxiety, when even the
shadows that still manage to scare me have managed
to fall asleep but I still haven't, there is nothing left
to turn to but this poem. and I don't know what this is.
I could call it an ode to all the people that have decided
I am just a damaged garden and there is nothing poetic
about planting flowers where the sun does not exist but
even then that would insist there were people willing to
plant weeds in abandoned graveyards
in the first place.
maybe I am selfish.
maybe it is wrong to want people to stay;
how could I have ever expected you
to love me when I never loved myself?
all I have are memories.
people I can only write stanzas about.
letters I can only read over and over again trying to
convince myself that I must've mattered.
I have given fragments of myself to people who have only
broken them into smaller pieces. this poem is probably
just an ode to my imagination for actually believing my
relationships with them were ever anything more
than just that, fragments

(h.l.)