take a bow.

perhaps I should not admit how

many times I read the words you 

doled out like cookies 

to a family dog: 

here, sit while I neglect 

your adoration, stay while I repeat the 

patterns that have worn grooves 

in my brain, come to me, come

to me while I dangle affection like 

a delicacy you will never 

place in your hands, let alone between

your soft lips

and there is truth, whether it finds you 

sulking in a corner, or

hunts you down within the 

chapters of a book, because

truth finds us all, in the end

I will never be the monsters who 

abandoned you, I will never be the 

scornful wasp that stung when 

you were convinced that you were trying, 

and I will never be the loving 

woman who brings you coffee and a pastry 

while you sleep late on a Saturday morning,

no matter how hard I long to be 

this story is not really about you

these words are about my willingness to lie 

in the dirt and wait for permission 

to leave, the urgency I feel to restore 

beauty to broken things, the desire 

I use to weld pieces of cold metal together to 

construct a pair of loving arms 

that don’t push me away