It’s not your fault that I can’t love you
the way you want to be loved. It’s just that
even on the good days, I have to hang my heart
from an IV drip to ensure it doesn’t claw
its way through the walls of my chest and land
gasping on the hospital floor. It’s just that
sometimes my reflection doesn’t recognise
me. I know you feel the same
way.

Last Wednesday you kissed me in an alleyway. Smelt
like piss and rotting garbage. Still, it was great
but I know you only did it to stop your cravings
for coke. So I locked myself up
in a bathroom stall. Stared at all the etchings
on the door. All the god damn
apologies and fuck you’s and promises
to stop making fences on body parts. To grow
into a more beautiful person -
tomorrow?
next year?
or, maybe just to learn how to love
without becoming an emergency
a triple-zero call
sirens echoing
in the darkness of the night.

Understand:
I am a time bomb, constantly digging
for more ways to keep myself from detonating
the both of us. Understand:
someone always lights the fuse anyway. So count
the casualties. It’s all over. Takes less time
than that last glance
over your shoulder
at the girl who’ll never love you.