This is not a beautiful story.
This is about you and me.
This is about two common thieves who could never see the forest for the trees,
and every word we breathed to one another in the spaces in between,
choosing to believe that we were anything but sinking vessels,
rending holes in the other’s heart-
this is about you and me in the dark,
sinking to the bottom of the sea.

See, this is not a beautiful story.

But the narrative you crafted was of two lovers in a romance, and you said that it was best that we keep it in the darkness, under the ironic promise that it was in the name of honesty to be fostered between us-
I suppose I wanted to believe it.

I was yours, and you were my secret.

But no heart ever knew a secret that didn’t grieve it, and it grieves me to think of unveiling my beauty meant for another man beneath the wandering of your hands,
and you said you didn’t understand why there were tears in my eyes.

Well neither did I,
but it still keeps me awake at night.

And I didn’t know it, but every time we parted you went home to finish what we started

alone in the dark with your computer screen.

This is not a beautiful story.

You used to say that we were more than the chemicals responding in our bodies,
like what we had was more than lonesome, broken misery masquerading as intimacy,

but it wasn’t.

You just needed a warm body
and I needed to be enough for somebody
we could never alleviate the pain we were trying to escape,
and If I could see you today, I would tell you that I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.