i know it's not a reasonable expectation
but i should have been enough
i should have been so much that you couldn't help loving me
that you would need me in your life and
in your bed, waking up inside your naked arms
should have been so much that you would brave panic attacks to visit me
and write songpoems about me and
change history and choose new anthems.
i thought i should have been enough to fix you
but (this time
this one time when i really should have been)
i wasn't even enough to try.

i hope your breath catches when you think of me
and that you aren't my friend because you miss me
and not because you don't
that you accidentally smile over me before you remember not to
that i'm lead in the pit of your stomach
i hope you think about what could have been

no, i don't.

i hope you get better and become a man i couldn't love:
an arrogant man chasing boys' dreams
a self-proclaimed artist who drinks too much and cannot trust
a man who couldn't love me the way i thought you could
a man who couldn't hurt me the way you did
who couldn't leave me with this gap
this ache

this

fear
.