I wish I had never met you.

You are Apollo, Zeus, and Hercules. You are midnight lullabies. You are drunken fists turned to open hands. You are the one constant presence in hotel rooms in Barcelona, Ibiza, Budapest, New York, everywhere. You are bloodied lips. You are gentle kisses. You are post-nightmare reassurance. You are a bullet to the head. You are toppled sandcastles on Massachusetts shores. You are white walls. You are the brightness of a phone screen in a dark room. You are a bruise that doesn’t go away. You are cold, rosy cheeks. You are morning coffee. You are yellowed pages of forgotten books. You are razor-burned jawlines. You are the crack of billiard *****. You are the hand on my knee beneath the table. You are the moon flooding through thin curtains. You are phantom limbs. You are a foreign name on a foreign tongue. You are the sunrise. You are a memory that doesn’t fade. You are every ******* poem I write.

I wish I had never met you.