Another S****y Apology To Someone I've Said Sorry To More Than I Should

To my best friend, Assen

When you met her,
you were young and fragile and barely dented.
She lured you in with a killer smile and vibrant eyes.
She said "I love you" then set fire to your own heart.
She took your hand, gentle and kind, and stabbed it,
then looked you dead in the eye and said it was your fault.
And the night you tried to kill yourself,
she stood back and watched with a paper blank stare.

And when you came across me,
you were nothing more than a broken heart looking for tape.
I wrapped up the gaping wounds she left
and hummed a lullaby to you at night.
I tangled myself through your limbs and stayed there,
creating a home for my bruised body.
I made you promise countless times to keep your lungs running
and to put away the bottle of amnesia you kissed
when she bursted into your head at midnight.

Then I sliced you open and let you bleed while I washed my hands.
I poured salt on your already burning cuts
while I repeated promises I couldn't ever keep.
I pushed you away no matter how badly I wanted
to feel your words on my lips and your skin infused with mine.
I left you with reopened scars and a bleeding heart.
And I guess I should apologize once more for being
a person you feels too much but loves too little.

So I'm sorry for not being the one to put you back together,
to sew you shut and knot the string.
I'm sorry for being yet another to get inside you
and rot in your bones just to leave when they're crumpling.
I'm sorry for being frightened by the thought of someone
digging their way into my chest and lighting up my interior.
I'm sorry for the doubts that polluted my brain
and the way I pushed you so close to the edge of leaving
that finally you gave up and fell without one last fight.
I'm sorry for the jagged words that fell out of my mouth
like rivers that never ran dry.
I'm sorry for the nights I tested my strength with pills
and opened my skin to let the shadows out.

And I'm sorry for today, for now, for it being too late
to write love back on your battered and torn heart.
I'm sorry for not telling you the words that always rested
at the tip of my tongue and at the back of my brain.
I'm sorry for not loving you with every ounce of me.
I'm sorry for planting daises in your rib cage
then not returning to water them the next spring.
I'm sorry for trying so damn hard to open my chest
and let you build a safe home inside
but instead I chained myself up with 12 different locks
and threw the keys into Lake Michigan.
I could go on and on and on but I won't
because I could write verses after verses
about how my heart aches for you
and how my body craves your touch
but no combination of 26 letters will make the universe change.
I started the fire and I must let it burn.