I confess: hurt isn’t even the word
for that dark room
or what I saw there. The door
opened. I swung & swung.
My hand broke. You cried. I wanted
to take back our whole lives & throw them
at the wild sky. August in a hurricane
state. You begged. You begged me
to swing, & I swung. I swung. The wrong hand
left able. I’ve never loved someone
so much. I wanted to lie
down in our bed. Let you strip me
until I apologized. I wanted to spit
in your eyes, drive away the dark
night. I heard the cicadas. Their cries
rose in my throat. I heard myself refuse to lie
down when my mind said the ground was
an assault I would survive. Tell me you understand
sorry means this ache won’t subside. Tell me
the body you wanted was mine. The exits
you escaped through each night. Blue,
the miscarriages in me. You cried
when I emptied of everyone
except myself. The back of my fists, blue,
how many nights I’ve wanted to break
the will in you. Even now, gutless,
the humid air crawls out of a cast
on my hand. There are only so many ways
to give up on everything you have.
The simplest way is to leave. This time,
you picked the wrong body in which to kneel & say please.