A garden of muses

If you can’t love me,
don’t stare at me sideways
with a constellation of chance in your eyes.
I might step in expecting you to break my fall
instead, finding the sidewalk
with a force so debilitating
my whole world would capsize
as my insides collapse.

If you can’t love me,
don’t look so, absorbed with me
like you’re dreaming,
when you’re only willing
to knock settlements and scenarios
around your head like it’s a game
where you have to keep your eyes covered
while i liquefy my strength and shoot up
a higher dosage of faith into my veins.

If you can’t love me
it’s already too late,
i think i have a problem
because my tolerance keeps growing
with the rate of my heart
and i’ve run out of space
between the track marks up and down my arm.

If you can’t love me,
don’t lie so comfortable in my bed,
say this feels natural
with your ear to my chest,
then tell me there is nothing
beating a reciprocal rhythem
between your breasts.

If you can’t love me,
don’t give me your lips
like i’m supposed to know how to take them
without your hand.
If you can’t love me,
Don’t say you can’t stay
then tell me you don’t want me to go
like there’s something between the lines
I’m supposed to read that’s never been written down.

If you can’t love me,
don’t say it would be so easy
when you’re not even trying.
If you can’t love me,
don’t tell me it’s something you’re fighting
like it’s ever an option,
as though it were not a feeling but a decision.
The unspoken truth
is you have no God given right,
so, don’t patronize my feelings
and waste your time.

If you can’t love me,
don’t try to help.
Don’t suggest it might be easier
if i hated you
just because it worked for someone else.
If you can’t love me,
never mattered much
because i loved you first,
you were my first love
and so, i always will no matter what.
So, don’t speak of hate
like it’s in my vocabulary,
like it’s something i’m able to use.
Even when you have taken my life,
it’s the farthest thing from my heart.

If you can’t love me,
don’t say you don’t want to upset me
like you intend to do something else.
I left my smile on your lips
the last time we met there,
the last time my arms thought they held you
with hope
and i thought i was, so close.
But, that spans back years ago
that sometimes feels like days
but, most often not at all real
or within my grasp.
If you can’t love me,
what should upset me more than that?

If you can’t love me,
don’t ask me why
I’ve been drinking in the dark.
Don’t look so concerned
while you sit there with blood in your lap
and fragments of my heart in your hand.

If you can’t love me,
don’t tell me what’s good for me or not
like you plan to stick around to influnce my well being
when we both know you’re leaving.
So, now i’ll stop drinking
as soon as my heart stops, b r e a k i n g
but, thanks for caring.

If you can’t love me,
just leave me with that shot glass,
lock the door on your way out
and don’t look back,
I know you already wish,
you didn’t ask.
If you can’t love me,
don’t say i can do better
when i have given you myself,
scraped the corners of my soul and taken down walls

that have been standing almost as long as i have been alive.

If you can’t love me,
at least know
you have ruined me for any other woman.
Anything that turns my head now,
cannot hold my attention.
Every time i try to look deeper,
I’ll see your face
and anything different just pales in comparison.
Sometimes, i think
I just need to tighten a loose screw
or seek counseling
but, maybe
I will just never love anyone
as much as i have loved you
and i had better come to terms with it.

If you can’t love me,
maybe it’s time you said so,
just divert your eyes so they don’t motion a yes
while your expression muddles, no.
That way the air will be clear
while it taints my future
and batters my ego.

If you can’t love me,
I don’t have the strength to argue
or reason to keep going
or chasing or hoping,
now that my eyes are open.
But the way you were always were running
from something, does leave me wondering.