"And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he'll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger."
                                        --- Leonard Cohen

I'm the most surprised person on the planet.
Your coming to see me off at the airport
has my mind scratching glass seeking words.
Why is it that in this relationship,
you seem to have gotten all the speaking parts?
You're well aware that I have loved you
for the better part of two years,
bottling that emotion, afraid to pop the cork.
Your eyes implore mine, rotating like
a searchlight over Baghdad seeking
the stealth laying carnage to your heart.
Twice in the last week you've made it evident,
the Grail was mine, but for the drinking ---
That and finding a shorthand for adultry.
I'm guilty courting the love of a married woman,
made worse, you're here at my departure
telling me we aren't free to choose who we love.
I know my desire must die of thirst,
so I turn, boarding pass in hand,
the last words I ever hear from you,
Write me! --- Thirty-five years later I have.

I cannot forgive you
for your past mistakes
because they are wrapped up inside my chest,
burning like the summer sun.

I cannot forget
the nights when I felt like nothing
and I held a bottle of yellow pills in my hand
because you pushed me over the edge.

I will not forgive
this feeling of absolute sadness
wrapped up inside of me,
I will not forgive
the stab wounds to my back
that the words you couldn't speak to my face left.

I will not forgive the person I became
because you said I wasn't good enough
(and I still never will be).

I'm sorry my words come out
when I'm neck deep in alcohol,
but drunk words are sober thoughts
and I've never been known to keep my mouth shut.

You are everything I never wanted to be around,
a disease of the mind, body, and soul,
and I cannot forgive you
for being the decay that is my demise.

288

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!