you can be brilliant, kind, hold a rare sense of empathy,

and i still cannot love you.

you can taste like the last safe place on earth

and my mouth will still forget how to say stay.

 

you can fold every sharp edge of me

into paper cranes and set them flying,

but something inside me,

will curl tighter instead of opening.

 

i will trace the ceiling for exits

while your arm lies heavy across my waist,

listening to your breaths like a countdown

to the moment i can slip away

without waking the guilt,

that sleeps curled between us like a third body

i never agreed to share.

 

i can watch you water every dead thing in me

and still feel drought.

i can taste the rain on your fingertips

and still stay parched.

i can memorize the way your hands shake

when you’re trying not to break me

and still not want to be the reason they steady.

 

you can taste like the first warm day in March,

carry my grief in your pockets without flinching,

say my name like it’s something holy

and i will still wake up empty beside you.

i will lie there perfectly still,

counting your heartbeats like a debt

i know i’ll never repay.

 

i cannot love you the way rivers love their banks,

i am the brown flood chewing earth,

ripping trees up by the roots,

and you keep laying bricks

on a foundation that will not stop moving,

until i nearly drown you of my protests.

 

you can give me grand castles in this lifetime,

but i will still stand outside in the rain.

not because the doors are locked,

but because i never wanted

to come in from the cold.

 

you can be the answer i prayed for as a child

and an older version of me will still turn away

because some prayers

were never meant to be answered,

they were only meant

to teach us how to live with the asking.

 

you can be absolutely everything and anything in this world,

and i will still be the one who cannot.

i’m sorry is the truest thing i have left to give you.

take it.

because it is all the love

i am capable of right now.