Once you told me “I’m going to write you a poem”
I took your jawline in my fingers and held your eyes in mine and said
“Don’t ever”

only it came out a little strangled and raspy
like the voice cracking on a freckle faced pubescent boy

You didn’t heed my warning
and a week and a half later I got three pages of
star signs and
rose petals and
wishing wells and
my eyes compared to 24 other things

And three months later you started to look like
a wilting ivy
a dehydrated leaf
a floating corpse

and I still blame it on poetry
and the way it eats at your soul
and rips its way through the lines in your palms

it nails words into the gaps in your spine
and wraps itself so tightly inside you it contracts your muscles
until it controls you

until the letters desperately written are more like *****
just something forced out of you to let go of a little sickness

I could say
“I told you so”
if I was still 9 years old
and didn’t know how it felt to let a pen and 26 letters control you

I could say I told you so

but instead I am just buying my third cup of black coffee
and trying to find another pen