to all the men who said i love you:
no, you don’t.
nobody ever loves a shipwreck, a graveyard
places of unrest and deathless suffering
the epitome of solitude to those misfortunate enough
to have made a home out of the debris of tragedy

to love someone is to know them
and you know nothing of the storm,
of the names carved into the tombstones
still oozing blood after years of heartache and grief.
you think of shipwrecks and graveyards
and can only imagine the sublime aftermath of poems,
pretending not to hear the screaming and wailing
that echoes off of every wretched line
the gnawing of teeth still tearing at the rotten flesh
the scraping of nails against the hard, cold cement
desperate to latch unto anything if it means keeping afloat.

to all the men who said i’m not scared of shipwrecks and graveyards,
places of unrest and deathless suffering:
no, you aren’t.
for who would ever scare of the chance to paint himself as charitable, compassionate
by just standing close enough to the ruins, never crossing the threshold
to leave flowers and sing lighthearted condolences to the corpses of a person whose voice you’ve never heard.
nothing will ever make you feel more of a good person
than grieving for this bleeding heart of mine.

to the first man who ever said he loved me, my father
who made a burial ground out of my body
before i could even think of it as anything but lifeless
staining this blank canvas before i could even think about painting anything but gravestones

finally, to me
who learned how to make a home out of the bones and damp wood
for this house may be haunted by ghosts of the past still
but it stands upon holy ground
and i will never let the termites tear their way inside again.