e

look, 

I spent twenty years seeing only the best you could bring

and we may have been going down a two-way street

but I was driving the car while you put your feet 

on my dashboard 

and spun the radio knob

to something you said I wanted to hear

so it’s my fault I guess

I was so focused on what you were doing

that I didn’t see what you weren’t

which was anything and everything and nothing at all

and when it came time for you to have my back

I learned it was there for another reason

another season

eh tu? this act of treason

came Caesar close to killing me

and I’m saying this 

because I still don’t know 

if you understand the unending and unenviable

and undeniable affliction

undertaken by you and yours truly

when you saw me on the ground

and walked away from me anyway

anyway

when you blamed me 

for getting dirt on your shoes

after you kicked up the dust 

around my face

I realized this love

had always been a chase

so did I catch up a little too late?

or were you purposefully always

changing your pace?

the whys and whens and 

how couldn’t I see’s 

have spent the last year 

devouring me

but hey, you got everything you wanted

edison-level recognition

while we were Tesla and Rontgen

rotting in our willing obligation

to please you at our expense

my two cents is we were left with two cents

while you took away the diamond

after you had to stand on us to reach it

I’ve tried to let it go

but I can feel the bitterness 

stretching its roots deeper inside me

and the only thing more painful

then you planting that seed

is that I don’t know how to stop it from growing

it’s both terrifying and numbing

to feel it tighten over my heart

when I see

when I hear

and when I think of you

like my heart is forming an armor

are more days like this always going to come?

can I ever move past the past?

is this vast black eye the absolute last I’ll remember you by?

they say a bruised apple still tastes sweet

but I don’t know if that’s about you or about me