there's a strength
in watching all the
other girls around you
fall for you,
even though i've seen
the way your mother talks
to you at your dinner table
in your childhood home.
i've watched tears stream down
your face because you couldn't
understand why you were so
different from anyone else.
i've listened to what hurts you.
you sat on a bench with me, drunk,
and told me you were scared of love.
i've seen the deepest parts of you.
and the night you came outside, drunk,
you said, "i care about you.
i really care about you. please
never hurt yourself, please."
and i said the same thing back.
you walked back inside to all
the girls drooling over you and left
me in the cold, but i knew where i stood
with you, i just hope at the end of the
day you know who will always
be there for you.

i remember all the times
i made you say goodbye
to me a little longer
just in case i never
got to say goodbye again.
i didn't know the last time
we said goodbye,
was going to be the last
time i would ever see you.
i didn't know this until you
ended our relationship
over the phone the next day.
i've just about come to terms
with it all now that it's
been months.
but i still wonder if all the
extra minutes i made you
stay and hold me
until you left
accounted for the time
i never actually got to
say goodbye to you.

I let you dig your poisonous
claws into me one more time
before I walked away.
This time when you said sorry,
I said it wasn't okay.
We are not okay.
Whatever this is, it's not okay.
I couldn't understand why you
took the one person who cared about
you and tossed them around
like they would always come back.
And maybe it's because I did always
come back.
Not this time.
You have hurt me for the last time.

did you think you could just take
the most vulnerable parts of me
and then leave without saying a word,
like i wouldn't rage a storm on you?
like it hasn't happened to me before?
did you think you would be so special
that i would let you ruin me?
because you got the one girl that your teammates couldn't stop talking about.
because you used her.
because she told you about the things
that made her bones ache?
and then you left,
without saying one word.
did it make you feel good?
and now you can't even pick up
the phone and answer when she asks
why.
because you are that weak.
honey, let's be real here:
you could never handle this storm
and we both knew that.

as much as i wanted to be wrong,
i knew i was right.
we are not meant to be.
two people cut from different cloths.
You and I.
two different branches
stemming from two different trees.
we never stood a chance.
this world couldn't handle two
huge weeping willows
put together as one.