It hurts to remember how broken we were,
that the reason we ended was never exact.
I don’t know why you walked away,
what drove you to think packing your bags
was the better option over talking
things through.
Then I remember how sad we were,
consumed in our own problems,
struggling to sort needs from wants,
fighting to stay alive when we both wanted to end it all,
and I realize that you were the smart one.
It was better to abandon ship when you knew it was sinking
because nothing would save us from
the truth.
I stayed on that ship until I was ten feet under water,
whispering I love you to the darkness as
my lungs filled and I sunk to the bottom.
You swam to shore. It must’ve taken
all your strength
to leave me drowning in the middle
of nowhere
while you ran so far inland that your thoughts of me stayed on the beach.