Writing to someone who only crushes my words like coffee beans
could probably be considered an unhealthy idea, but the truth is
you have not made me any less careful than I was seven years ago,
back when I was a girl with combat boots and feather earrings
who stole your glances like a wallet and never returned them.
Why hold anything back when I can lay it all out between us
like one of those blankets covered with stars like the universe
that tricks the person it covers into believing
that maybe the cosmos is really reachable after all.
Truth be told, my parents both called you a splinter,
something that couldn’t be removed with tweezers
or even the most carefully constructed of rejections.
In Atlanta, when we were apart, the only person that walked
me home was my shadow, the fact of which made me so sad
that I’d sooner have scrubbed it from the sidewalks
with bleach and rubber gloves than have someone other than you
stuck close to my side like an arrow to a bow.
All things considered, this letter as a form of apology
probably won’t mean much to you, but then again it was you
who said the reason we broke up was because I only ever
liked men I could write poems to, and I never did
slip you any freshly-typed ones with your morning coffee
or place them underneath your door like a welcome mat.
But now, if I still had the courage to look you in the eye,
I would tell you I’m sorry this poem took five years
to get to you.