I'm sorry I'm here.
I'm sorry I'm not here.
You with so many names,
I'm never sure what to call you.
A different name
for every predation
and infatuation.
Would you have made it on your own
without the chronic condition of boyfriend?
I'm sorry for the slowness
and stamina of time;
years like zombies,
dawdling toward a cliff edge.
I'm sorry.
You feared a moment of insanity.
Not locking the guns away
but keeping a steady eye on them.
You consulted the non-intervening moon
and her shifting moods.
You underestimate me.
I'm my own split mirror.
Here I am,
dating solitude in the doorway,
a chest cavity
occupying the premises,
a woven cage
of stark obsidian and blinding ivory,
refereeing a dispute between
survival
and self-control.
I'm sorry
for long nights,
intersections of memory
and obsession,
panic attacks
and conveyor belts,
clinging to reality
by a sinew of tooth.
I'm sorry I was absent,
memorizing Deuteronomy
for a taste of milk and honey,
pleading guilty
to inherited charges,
getting confirmed
as an antidote
to the evil core of me.
I'm sorry it was exotic
to imagine women like me
ending up in an asylum
coincidentally,
inevitably,
conveniently.
salvaged,
peristalsized through society,
brain-blown
and safely contained,
doused daily
in ice water,
electricity,
or disgrace,
temptations kept
far enough away
to seem imagined.
Like you.
My brave boyfriend,
fantastic prodigy
in a flowing ragged white bathrobe,
long black hair braided back,
a beautiful profile,
dark stone,
that unbreakable stare.
I'm sorry
I was ill-prepared
for your grubby mattress,
your comatose body,
submerged beneath
cheap *****
I'm sorry
that even I
developed feelings for you
amid adults
acting like it's okay
to leave you this way.
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