One simple name,
you had called her.
You didn't have a reason to,
nor do you care.

That simple name,
scarred her innocent heart.
She believes it is true,
lets it tear her apart.

One simple name,
it was funny at the time.
It was only a joke,
you didn't commit a crime?

I'll tell you a secret,
I hope you can keep.
She's sick after every meal,
and cries herself to sleep.

She's given up food,
she's given up hope.
She's finding it hard to breathe,
she's finding it hard to cope.

"You're so  fat."
is what her bully said.
That simple name*,
is the reason she's now *dead.

she was a poet,
and he was her pen.
in him,
she always found words to write,
songs to sing,
thoughts to think.

he'd smile,
and kiss her softly,
and say,
"write me a poem."

and she would.
she'd put poe,
and whitman,
and shakespeare to shame,
and she'd write a poem that made his eyes water.

she'd compare him
to a rose with no thorns,
a book with no end,
a world with no poverty --
the things we all wish for,
but can never attain.

//

he asked her one day,
"what am i?"
and so she picked up her pen,
and began the usual:
you are the shining sun after a hurricane,
with rays that open the eyes of the blind.
but he stopped her after those two lines,
and said that this time,
he didn't want any metaphors,
or similes,
or analogies.
he wanted the truth.

and so on that night,
as he slept,
the poet picked up her pen,
and she wrote.

she wrote,
then thought better of it,
then started over again,
and this cycle continued well into the early hours of the morning,
until suddenly,
she wrote, frantic,
if i can't love you for what you really are,
have i ever really loved you at all?

this, too,
she thought better of,
condemning it to the trash.

the next morning the poet was gone,
her final work a mere two words:

i'm sorry.

(a.m.)