A Love Poem

Your solitude a juggernaut,

Here you are.

There we were

Destroying all we are

The benevolent failing in their only work,

Your heart became ever so corrupted

The molten core I aimed to be

Became the dirt beneath your feet

Crammed in the map lines of the sole of your shoe

Seen only when you entered home

Searching for warmth and comfort

I left you on a Friday and regretted it on Saturday

I refused to turn back, to look 

At your plaid flannel and tapered khakis

To see your cheeks without a smile

Without those dimples, 

Rather covered in the tread marks of tears

I refused to let you see my swollen, remorseful eyes

Filled with dejected rage, two burn holes of bogies in a blanket

Yet here we are a year later, our tongues still stuck to frozen flagpoles

I’m only acquainted with your shadow

But for the words your mother shares with me

And the moments your mother shares with me

The time your mother shares with me

Your mother like a nicotine patch when I need that cigarette

To taste smoke on my breath

You on my breath

What is left of you that lingers on my breath

My very last breath

The one I used to tell you that I was leaving on that Friday.