always a sad poem

i learned my lesson from you.

234 days i don’t regret

but i know i won’t get back.

eleven minutes was all i needed to ease the thorns you placed in my lungs.

the only thing you had to say was i’m sorry.

two words have never meant so little.

emerald flags faded to your favorite color

on days of severed silence.

squeezing my throat with an invisible string,

pulled through internet lines.

miles of distance split my senses down the middle

and you took hold of them in the darkness of my room through a screen.

secrets shared, truths told, promises falling flat.

my breath wasted on conditional love for personal gain.

everything i didn’t say spoke through playlists.

your name spelled out in each one.

a false hope you deciphered my maybes in every lyric

i thought was meant for you.

delusion played a part in my dreams of you,

as reciprocation misled the desperate pining of a fragile heart.

of all of the words i have left for you

i know you’ll always be a sad poem on the tip of my tongue.

[ALSO PUBLISHED ON HARNESS MAGAZINE]