i need you to call me on the phone and beg me
not to hang up
i need you to tell me you're sorry, not for all the horrible things you've done,
but for not being there when you should have been.
i know it's not all your fault, i know you're a sick woman,
but i belong to you.
i will always belong to you.

i need you to sit down with me and hold my hand and cry with me
and tell me about your past lovers and why they left you
i need you to tell me about your first kiss
i need you to tell me that being a woman is terrifying, yet empowering
and list the reasons why.
i need you to set an example.

i need you to tell me you'd do anything for me,
i need you to acknowledge that you are a liar and that
the words you use with me are almost always
meaningless.

sometimes i fantasize about one day
typing out all of the sad and angry and vicious and painful poems
i've written about you, ripping them from my
typewriter, sticking them in a tightly sealed enveloped
and leaving them in your mailbox with a note on the front that says:
"here is all that i couldn't say. goodbye."
and then getting on a plane to nowhere, anywhere
and never coming back.

i need you to be someone you are not, and perhaps
never were
maybe that's why i cling so tightly
to those pictures of you when you were 21,
because you look so
happy, beautiful, magnetic.
you look like how i'd like to remember you,
how i'd like to know you.
we were all someone different once.

i need you and i know
it's an inconvenience and for that,
i am sorry.

at least i have the photographs.