On Burning Too Easily

A poem

Those day were sun bleached
and nights were blowing smoke into empty air,
there was always sand everywhere.
You were my best friend, and I needed you
and you needed me.

I was always there. I am still there.
You were my softest spot, a bruise you would press;
I drove us home once when you were too drunk but I still asked you to park the car.
You scared me, a little, but I needed you.
Did you need me?

We looked at the stars and I liked the smell of what you smoked.
I wrote the story about you dying before you died
to me.
I wonder now if I saw the future or made it.

When you read it you cried,
but you were high, so that doesn’t mean much.

The only time I went to your rehab you kissed my cheek.
I wished I was that brave.
You were always a light but sometimes it was too harsh,
sometimes it hurt my eyes,
blurred out the corners, left me blinking.
I loved you so much and now you’re the only person I know how to hate.

When I let myself feel it your absence is a knife wound in my side,
when I take my hands away everything falls out.
But even when I hold it in color leaks;
I can’t talk about you without spilling blood.

I didn’t take care of you the way I should have.
I didn’t take care of you the way I should have.
I didn’t take care of you the way I should have.

Who will take care of me?

You left me bleeding with nowhere to go.
But know I’m still sorry that I stained your hands red.
I know you see it.

I cannot hate you without hating myself,
so I will do both, as long as it takes.
If we talked, I would say
your remorse will never be enough for the grief I’ve felt.

It will never be enough.