06 break ups were too easy

break ups were too easy

even for my first summer relationship

where I waited for him for a year later.

My heart wasn’t broken but it did ache.

I genuinely liked him.

I knew it would end eventually,

that I’d be the one to pull its thread,

unravel it and crotchet it into a faint memory.

 

I’m horrible,

he said, his hazel orbs pleading

like a starving, lost puppy.

 

“No,” I half lied, “just unfaithful.”

A coward who needed his teeth pulled

to admit he was lustful and a cheat,

who couldn’t look me in the eye but wanted pity.

You don’t want a relationship

like this one, do you?

She looked miserable though I sat in front

of the couch, a yard from her feet,

my cheeks wet as I watched her nod

in dad’s direction. “No. I don’t. “

She wanted to give me a chance

to make the decision she couldn’t

seventeen years ago.

 

So this is it?

he whined, pulling at my arm, his heart

on his sleeve, mocking me.

 

My jaw ached. “Yes, we’re done for.”

He wanted someone to cling to him,

someone dependent upon his every word and move,

someone who wasn’t me. Obviously.

Even when I was clingy, it wasn’t clingy enough.

 

I’m sorry,

he whispered, But he wasn’t, was he?

Just lonely. Selfish. An a*****e.

  

I shook my head, freeing my arm. “Sorry can’t

reverse cheating,” I smiled, my face cracking beneath.

Is my smile too forced?

I adjusted my shirt. “If you loved me,

you wouldn’t have done it to begin with.”

 

I need you. Come with me.

My stomach twisted.

At one time, I may have.

 

“Clearly, you don’t.” I was just a fling,

a summer lust he had captured,

feeding, manipulating my sadness into love,

just to throw me away.

 

Please, don’t do this. I know I don’t

deserve you, but I really do need you.

 

He wouldn’t have deleted my number,

He wouldn’t have kissed them like he did me.

He wouldn’t have slept around and lied.

He did this to himself.

He made his bed, and now

he had to lie in it

like the ballsy asshat he was.

 

I left him there, beneath the twinkling

amusement park lights I was fond of,

leaving a wasted year behind.