iii.

Weeks turned into months
Months turned into years
We didn’t think we’d last together
Then why are we still here?

Let’s just face the music
We were never meant to be
Then why was I still waiting
For the day that she would actually love me?

I had to end this
This sick, twisted world that we were trapped in
With a cracked voice that I hoped she didn’t notice
I sneered with a forced grin

“I can’t comprehend
Why you still choose to stay
For you know I keep you around
Only to keep my demons at bay.

“Don’t you know
You serve merely as my muse?
You will never mean anything more.
If you left, I still won’t have anything to lose.”

I continued to question her
With my vision increasingly unfocused
Brokenness present in my voice
And my emotions bubbling over

“Why would you love
A poet like me
With scars on my heart
And strangled cries on my lips?”

She laughed humourlessly then
With regret in her voice
And with those words
I knew it was almost, always, never my choice

“You also told me ‘tomorrow’
But what if tomorrow never comes
Will you still love me then
With evidence of my pain all over my arms?

“Will you just hold me
And not utter a single word
Don’t tell me it’s okay
When we both know it isn’t

“I know that words make up your life
And at the same time tear you down
But they just aren’t the thing
That I need right now.”

Should I have stayed?
Was it right to leave like I did?
I convinced myself I was hearing things as I walked away
Because she would never cry and I have never heard her plead

I waited for too long
For an outcome that never appeared
I longed to feel wanted
And that was all my ego ever needed

Why didn’t I go sooner?
Why didn’t I know when to let go?

Maybe it’s because she told me that she loved
A poet like me
With what I thought was emptiness in her heart
And lies on her cracked lips.