Who Gave You Permission To Stay Stuck On Him?

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Dear heart,

I hate being a poet. Who gave you permission to want him like that? Who gave you permission to wish for someone you weren’t supposed to wish for because you already fucking knew it wouldn’t work out?

Who gave you permission to love someone who could probably never understand the intensity, the raging ocean, the fucking hurricane of your throat when you beat for someone?

When you beat for someone like that. When you beat for him. Him.

Who gave you permission to hope when he said maybe he’ll buy you a drink like we’re in a fucking movie? You already know that happy endings don’t exist in real life. Who gave you permission to want the kind of hard love that yells in the face of a thunderstorm on a Friday night and waits for him to hear you on the other end of the phone line? To hear you through the crash of rain and beer upon hopeless, dirty streets. Who gave you permission to wait for him to hear the wanting in your stupid, crying voice, to hear the way you break into ugly, broken sobs in the shower and pretend the tears running down your face are just shower water?

Who gave you permission to write about him when he doesn’t deserve your poetry?

He doesn’t deserve your poetry, doesn’t deserve you. Who the fuck gave you permission to love him when he doesn’t even love you back?

When you still don’t know if he loves you back, but you’re pretty damn sure that he doesn’t. You’re acting like a broken record even though I know you have rooms and rooms of other songs locked away.

So, who gave you permission to stay stuck on him?

Sincerely,

A Poet Who Cannot Swallow the Blue Immensity of Love Any Longer