we have become saturated sponges,
soaking up unrequited love as if it were water
but we are running out of air and chasing nostalgia
like a blind man would his cane has to stop someday.
candy lovers all taste the same, sweet and sour
at the same time and bitter too. he told me he was tired
of just ******* around tired to coming in second place
tired of not being able to breathe because he was
a crumpled up dishtowel on that floor than cannot dry
because he was tired of absorbing my tears on his shoulder
and becoming a monsoon too big to live but too small
to make a difference. i said stay he said no i said i'll
change he said he didn't think i could i said i was sorry and
he said there was no reason to apologize for the truth.
but how can i not apologize when i have made you a trophy
story to tell my friends when i am drunk and moody
because you are no longer by my side. how can the words i'm
sorry not be carved into the cave of my mouth, tattooed
across my bottom lip with jet black ink when i still
call you, just to prove to myself that i am good enough for
someone at least how can i not be unyieldingly grateful
when you put me back together after i was a broken glass vase
and planted flowers in the deepest embers of my imagination.
i am sorry. i am sorry that i am too big of a mess to
acknowledge that i need help. i am sorry that i am so scared
of failure i hide behind big t shirts and razor sharp knives.
i am sorry that i lie through my teeth like a magician and
get angry when you don't tell me the truth, as if i have a right
to deserve it. but most of all, i am sorry that you cannot help
but grow flowers in a place where only weeds grow. my body
is an abandoned graveyard too beaten down to function
and you tried to make it a home and for that, for that
most of all i am truly sorry, from the deepest trench at the
smallest hole in my skeleton.

(h.l.)