A home that never learned my name, I reached the shore just as the tide pulled away. Loneliness disguised as freedom, Your hands stained red with promises you couldn’t keep. Uncertainty spoken to the deaf, A language lost on a foreigner. Running from myself, but the mirror pulls me back. Hiding in the rearview. I thought I saw an angel, but… never mind. Burned the letters but kept the ashes, An I love you frozen in the wind. A poem abandoned mid-thought, Praying to a wordless God. I ran from love for as long as I could Until it knocked on my doorstep In the ghost of you. And I knew It was time to pay my dues. But I grew tired. Tired of believing In the conspiracy theory That you’d grow a backbone out of my patience. Tired of whispers that echoed back Phrases we once spoke in our secret language. I am tired of heartbreak, And lovers Who slammed the door so hard all pictures were shaking. Another thing I ruined. A bridge leading nowhere, A garden where nothing grows, A compass...
the 1950s had Sylvia Plath and you all have me