no barriers of metaphor, no
speech staring from a desk,
forget poetry and what i
made you believe and what
i couldn't make you believe.
just one simple confession
to let you go and set me
(at least a little)
free. i wanted you from
before i met you, i wanted
to make you mine, i wanted
to believe in love but
you kept me from it, and
i left because of you,
because i couldn't have
you and because i always
did, because i couldn't
be
within a thousand miles
of your face when i knew
that the line was drawn
around our arms
and not our lips,
when you clasped a white
sheet of paper with just
one word scrawled, black,
folded away, and i knew
you'd never read it,
you'd just keep it,
stowed away in that drawer
you once showed me,
and was it in that moment
that i failed you?
it was in that moment
that i failed me.