Addiction/Rehab
I have been in love one hundred times,
But never romantically. Obsessively,
Platonically, lustfully, aggressively,
Always reading the blanks between the lines.
I read a whole story into you, there;
You were jaded by adultery,
And I by dull monogamy:
But I saw fool’s gold in empty air.
We were together, loneliness and lips!
Those petal-soft words from a rosy daze
Left me stranded at Hope for a hundred days.
And then, like any actor, your mask slips.
A monster from your desperation,
Horrified by my reciprocation,
Tyrannous from your idiocy,
The Devil in you thought you’d blame me.
So annihilated by fear I froze.
(Icicles slitting through my toes)
Birds resting loudly on my shoulders.
(My ugliness scared them as I got older.)
Waiting for you to preach more poetry.
(Spinning sonnets about you and me.)
I saw the roses in your eyes for her.
(Oh, God, I hope this isn’t over.)
I am nothing in your liquor kiss
But a statistic for your awful lists.
A ghost once occupied the bed you share,
There were my shoes, my dress, my hair.
A fairytale couple in spring’s first gloom,
I shed the skin you touched, and bloom.
The flowers on me have withered now,
Ravaged by spiteful winter’s snow;
Thorns may not be so beautiful,
But they keep away the lovelorn cruel.
The far blossom is too pretty to touch
For someone who has trashed that crutch.
I have never been in love.
