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To My Ex, an Explanation, an Apology

5.2.2019

I am not sure where this will end,

looking down a long road

that disappears over some horizon

that I think I’ll call

midnight, I’ll call

a moonless light,

stars not quite bright enough

to lead me home.

 

My ego clouds over the constellations,

fear swirls in the gray ash of water molecules

mixing itself in trepidation,

the anticipation of anger

so out of control like

watching someone strike a match

and try to light a single leaf on fire

while the whole forest is already

consumed in flames.

 

I call out to them,

“what the fuck are you doing?”

They don’t answer, just keep trying

to strike the match until

they, too, are consumed

by the flames.

 

I turn away, because I can’t bear

to watch the fire I started

and all that it’s destroyed,

can’t even mutter the words,

no matter how many times

you lash out with embers

scalding my face, instead all I

can imagine are if those embers

were the same ones that

forged these rings,

hammered so delicately as to fit us

so perfectly, if only I could fit you

that same way.

 

When you first saw me

standing on this long road, you

saw evergreens and blue sky.

 

Had you only looked closer you

would’ve seen the match box

in my back pocket.

 

I warned you that I was broken,

you doubted that was true,

even as you watched me

set myself on fire,

until I broke you too.

 

Until you trusted me with everything,

like wishing every piece of you

on some falling star hoping it

would land in the palm of your hand,

and when one finally did,

you realized that wishes burn true.

 

Until I made promises I couldn’t keep,

my heart so badly wanted to,

but everything I am would eventually

shatter.

 

Those evergreens now enwrapped

in flickering tongues,

the blue sky now raining the ashes

of what we built, and when I

reached the horizon

I found that the road did not continue,

there was no horizon at all,

no greener pasture,

no ocean of love to wash

hope around my feet,

just a parapet before a precipice

of failure.

 

I was born with a match box in my back pocket,

waiting to be who I always have been.

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