I'm sorry I could not love you
through all of your endless metaphors
or in all the ways you handed me words
of what your heart had in store.

I'm sorry I could not love you
when you loved me with so much magic.
I'm sorry somehow I made you realize
that fairy tales did not happen.

I'm sorry I could not love you
for your hands or for your eyes,
for the way you kept me laughing
or for the way you loved my smile.

I'm sorry I could not love you
and you decided to say goodbye.
But now here I sit and write
remembering your lullabies.

I'm sorry now for telling the truth-
but this has become a tragedy.
I'm sorry I only learned to love you
when you had stopped loving me.

I've run out of stories to tell
about how you took
the best of me.

You used to chew tobacco on late nights like this,
on late nights when we couldn't find the stars in the sky.
You would always say you hated the world
and then kiss me when you remembered I existed.
Then suddenly you fell in love with a new kind of light-
no longer the ones that burned in my hands
but a name like a hushed prayer
on your lips
that no longer met mine.
Nights like this became worrying
as I sat by the piano-
quietly playing your favorite song-
hoping I'd hear your
car in the driveway.
Nights like this became following the smell of alcohol
up the stairs to our bedroom-
you said over and over again about how you
were too tired to talk
and I was always too tired to argue.
Nights like this became blurry vision from wasted tears
and pressing cold meat to my eyes--
but I never stopped waiting for the constellations
to appear
hoping that the stars I once found in your eyes
would return.