There was nothing mathematical about the way that I loved you

There was nothing logical, or choreographed, or otherwise organized.

My love for you is chaos

Was chaos

Chaos with a vengeance

Chaos like a vortex in July

A fiery cascade of burning memory.

And I do love you

I promise

But you are not my happy ending

You were never my finish line

Or my conclusion paragraph

Or the end of this poem.

You were a cautionary tale

On the hubris of falling in love

Convincing me that you would catch me

And all the while you didn’t even know which ground to walk on.

 

Now my feet hit the earth half as hard as they used to.

Afraid the rug will be pulled away at any moment. Afraid of the fall.

You see I know you never loved me

At least not the way you made me believe.

The way my heart used to hurt when you were gone.

The way I would worry if I didn’t hear back for too long.

I’ve never cared that much before you see

And I didn’t know I could care that much

And it only makes it hurt that much more

To know you never did.

And I don’t know if I was just a friend to you, but friends don’t do the things we did.

Or perhaps I was a fling you always intended to toss to the wind

And I suppose that’s why they call it a fling

But I would’ve grown roots for you

I would’ve flown for you

Or taught myself how to dance

But the truth is you only needed me for the summer.

An entertainment too cheap to be television and I hate that I let myself weep over you.

Again and again and again

And the tears still haven’t dried from my bathroom floor

Or my steering wheel

Or the sidewalks

But I’m learning to let go

Knowing my tears have more value than your memory of me.

 

I am opening my art show

An empty book

With enough room to write for every person I will ever love

And you are not the final poem in my history books.

You were barely the footnote in the autobiography.

You were just a reminder that love is the most dangerous thing you can ever do.

And that sometimes it takes all the strength you have left, to let go.

To dance to new songs

To visit new restaurants

Ask new questions

Teach yourself how to breathe again as if they didn’t take your lungs when they said they never loved you.

But I know I always loved you

It just wasn’t enough.