He made me question you.
Not that I didn’t already have my doubts.
I knew you didn’t treat me well,
although you were, by no means, abusive.
And you loved me.
Although, I only knew, because you
occasionally said it aloud.
He made me feel good.
A man that cannot make me laugh
is not worth the time of day,
and God, did he make me laugh.
A man that I cannot relate to,
could not steal my breath away,
but I know exactly how he feels
on cold, desperate mornings
when he must force himself
to get out of bed,
and doing so is an accomplishment
all on its own.
He did not have to tell me these things,
because we share those mornings,
just as we share a love for poetry,
our vice and our savior,
our last attempt to create something good.
And you, you could make me laugh,
but more often you were the cause
of those cold, desperate mornings,
and you did not understand why
I slept in as late as possible
and lay in bed staring at the ceiling
for hours on end.
And you did not understand
that sometimes I needed to be held together,
because I could not manage to do it on my own.
But he knew these things,
and I didn’t have to waste my breath,
to try and get him to understand.