Advice to be Forgotten
If only I could see what I used to see in you
a wild heart, a cheeky grin, a person who
might dare to care about another.
I walked up too close and too fast,
thinking mistakenly you wanted us to last
but now I see you only wanted me
to want you.
I was a disgrace who had no courage to listen to
myself, and what I knew to be true because to do
anything was to admit I was wrong, that my choice
was flawed and that I was not good enough, never
interesting enough to be kept around.
But I am not one of your dusty books. I am not longer
afraid to be afraid, scared to be alone, blinded by
a one-sided infatuation that gave me all the wrong
information, telling me red was blue and to
love was to suffer in ecstasy.
So I must say, to all the people who are me,
but distinctly them, who are struggling to separate
what they know and their love for him, to all the
hearts that have been quietely broken:
doubt is a key to unlock a better you
pain is a measure of right and wrong
and small things add up and up and up
even on the biggest set of scales
whose labels we've made too generous.
You have to speak for yourself
and stop speaking for them.