come to find out

(2024) a post-valentine's weekend breakup poem I *finally* got around to finishing because that feels appropriate, no? lol

you only ever saw me 
as you were
if only I’d known sooner
that there was no room in our mirror 
for me 
to take new shapes

despite it all we transformed 
scintillation of conversation
the witchcraft of word
a spell of discovery 
of working principle

you said you loved us
like air — 
and I saw how you loved air…
so I ask, respectively 
was it lie or performance?

I am transfixed with curiosity 
so much I can't let go—
does it rub to know you made me 
into what you had to abandon?
did it heal the wounds you spoke from 
but wouldn’t speak to?

maybe the real release:
is the freedom 
of disillusionment;
there was no magic 
to be made there—
or, even,
we used it all we could

I like that better
petty doesn’t speak tenderly
to the grief that still creeps 
that’s the rough edge of judgement 
(my own to be clear) 
and I would be care full
not to project 

or rather that,
if I would be an artist
of memory and relationship?
I wish to use a brush, soft 
and unburdening
recovering my works from a mind full 
with vision, 
learning and innovating
stretching and breathing 
into the hurt

true or not
now 
I get to love me like air

thank you 
for the lesson