I. THE FALLING IN LOVE

i should have known

from how the very first thing you told me
was a lie, and your eyes captivated me,
perhaps because i could never read them;
you were a mystery

that it was wrong

for you to say you liked me, so soon
just because i brought you cookies
just because i did; i must have been so good
at falling in love that you thought
you were too

II. THE FALLING APART

i should have known

when you’d say you love me
but i’d find myself alone,
when i’m blue, when i’m in tears,
and you search for words
and come up empty

that it was wrong

except i’d gotten so used to it,
to making excuses, to finding comfort
in what you offered, to convincing myself
it meant more

III. THE HOLDING ON ANYWAY*

i should have known

when i was too afraid to be honest; i knew
the hurt my words would cause; i knew
they could never be taken back, and that
we would both be left hollow

that it was wrong*

if i ever hurt you i would have had to be
broken myself, shattered beyond repair; and
the bullet i would use to shoot you were the
pieces of metal i dug from my own heart
with shaking hands

i should have known
that it was wrong
and i did,

but i thought that if i kept quiet you would
never notice and i would rather live with you like
this, because you disable the ticking time bomb
of my heart and in its place a dull ache,
throbbing instead of beating, and because
if you left, *no one would care if i exploded