Portrait of the Artist as the Wench She's Always Been (August 25, 2009)

Of all things I fear apologies
are never becoming,
so you won't get one.

Nights spent soaking my insides
hoping to never sound dry
are all too frequent.
I'd strip myself of you and your misfortune,
prefer to bathe in my own,
cut memories out of flesh you were too modest to break,
and to be broken in, I probably never will be.

To say the least,
(and I never do)
you were practice.

In leaving you, I met several other me's,
taught myself to never think twice,
do first, write about it later.
Engorged myself in constant digression,
the bane of my poetry and of you,
a subtle train wreck to collapse on the parlor floor,
but again, I digress--

If I'd stuck around,
you'd resent me more than you do now.
As ripe as I never was,
you'd know only bitter,
pruned,
heart like a pit,
sagging under the weight of my support,
ready to drop,
to be covered in the maggots I've been calling friends,

And still I'd never muster up the apology,
despite the comfort you might find in it.