If you kiss him
I will still write you poems.
I see you
Walking a tightrope of a choice
Leaning one way and then the other.
I see you.
I see everything, even when I try not to.
It is the curse of somebody
Who fears to miss anything
Lest it sneak up.
I don't miss anything
And that protects and damns me in equal measure.
I am ready, in some way, for every blow
But the price of that
Is that I feel them in privacy, alone and rigid,
Before they even happen,
Whether
They even happen.
I have choices.
We all have choices.
All we have
Are choices.
I could make the choice to go cold like stone
And protect myself in case you
Are upstairs right now,
Kissing him tonight the way you kissed me
Last night.
I could make the choice to believe that there is nothing else that could possibly be happening,
And crumple in on myself like a fallen souffle,
Let myself feel soft and rotten inside like a fruit hidden in the grass
With perfect skin
And decay beneath.
Or
I could choose to trust you
That I am special
That I am something
That even if you are up there kissing him
I haven't lost just yet.
I could choose to remind myself that when I met you
You were his
And now you aren't
And that
Is more than I ever dared to hope for.
What is strong, darling?
Tell me what strong is.
I asked you with my eyes last night
And the answer I got was that at that moment
Strong was not something that mattered,
And I fell into that,
Tired and released, for once.
But I never did find out-
What
Is strong?
What am I
That I will still write you poems
Even if you forget me?