Where did it all go wrong?
When I was ensnared by your devilish grin?
Sneaking cigarettes behind your work,
The smoke rising in the autumn air,
Carrying my hopes skyward with it?
Maybe by then it was already too late.
Fast forward to that early morning,
when everyone else was asleep,
and we were fucking quietly on the floor
So as to not alert suspicion.
The sun cast quiet warmth through the window,
But we were making plenty warmth of our own.
Yes, by that moment I can say I was hooked.

It only lasted a few months.
I was to learn, all too painfully,
That you didn't really care about me.
Oh sure you did, when you were in my mouth,
Or we were intertwined in the park, the cemetery,
Copulating in the dark as the air grew colder.
But when it wasn't my body you wanted,
You didn't give a goddamn.
I cared, so much, and tried so hard to get you to,
But you wouldn't have any of it.
You ran away, came back long enough to
Cheat on your other partners with me,
And then left again.
It didn't feel good, being the "other woman."
It was unethical.
But I was so in love with you, and so desperate,
That I scrambled for any and every
Scrap of your affection.
I didn't value myself enough to say "no."

You think I'd learn, from that rocky beginning,
But twelve years later and I haven't.
I've gotten better at saying "no,"
But I don't say it as often as I need to.
I hang on too long for men who don't care,
Who only want to touch me, not love me.
I reach out with desperate arms, wanting more,
But they recoil and retreat
Into the void from whence they came,
Cloaked in anonymity behind a screen.
I give away pieces of my heart, my soul,
In the form of Times New Roman,
But am met with naught but silence.
Dejected, I cocoon myself into loneliness.

It's so far in the past now,
And so much has happened,
But sometimes I wish I'd never fucked you
That sunny fall morning.
Maybe I would've saved myself so much pain.
Maybe I wouldn't have developed
A desire to chase people so unattainable.
Maybe I even could've learned to love myself,
Instead of thinking I needed
Another person to do it for me.
Maybe.
But it's all history at this point.
All I know is that
I am getting sick of the way dust tastes.