To The Perfection I Ran Away From

I ran.

I’m sorry.
I panicked, and I ran.

The last time I cried in this corner
I reached for you the first time.
I was alone, drained, neglected,
You were warm, tall and all smiles.
We were no novel and we trailed off,
Silent into the night.

but you came back with a twist, and
this time we spoke of music, arts, business,
Your past and mine, my future and yours,
a connection without common past or future,
a connection framed in the present.

But we were a castle built on lies.
With you I played
five times the girl I was,
five times the woman I could be,
five times the stranger I am.
I forgot love wasn’t a game –
I never knew love wasn’t a game,
and you never knew you were playing.

When you kissed me I should’ve pushed you away.
I wasn’t sure,
I didn’t know,
I went with it,
and I lost control.
You were the man he never was,
gentle, appreciative,
but all I could think of was how he’d taste on my lips.

You see,
I’ve only known it rough,
and you’ve only done it right.
So my body wrapped around yours the way it’s been taught, but
it’s confused, stranded;
My lips searched for love the way it’s been guided, but
it hits a wall, a closed door.

You wanted to stay the night.
I was thrown.

I was thrown back
To when stay the night never meant ‘just stay’.
To when I lay still till he fell asleep and I tossed in my head.
To that long month after we held each other,
when all I wanted was a man who would stay, stand guard,

Protective over my half present soul.

And here you were.
You were straight out of a movie,
A prince in search.
But I’m no princess and no more a damsel.
You were a fairytale where I had no role,
no cause to be.
You were perfection and I,
so scarred.

So I ran.

I’m sorry.
I panicked, and I ran.

But every time I walk past my door
I hope to see you perched against that same rounded fence,
Head lowered, engrossed in thought,
So I could explain why I had to leave.

So you could tell me
stay.

I stare at our conversation frozen,
Waiting,
Willing,
for online to turn into the words I can never say.

It won’t though.
And it shouldn’t.

So I’m writing this now.
Because soon after there will be nothing left to you
but broken ashes of kindness,
roadkill on my highway of moving on.
Exaggerated memories of
confusing kisses, forceful, foreign, inexperienced;
clammy hands, cold to my scorching skin;
your waiting messages, hopeful, willing,

left unread at my ring-fearful fingers.

I’ll forget how
You drew constellations on my neck and breathed life to a broken spine; how
You enveloped me from behind, sealing in self-doubt with a kiss; how
You tossed me up as if every thought in my head would not one day kill us.

Because of you I am a lucky man, you said.
I am incapable of that, I thought.

And so I ran.