I am a poet.
Self-published and set by world-renowned composers.
A Grammy-nominated lyricist.
Believe me when I say: I have the ability to encapsulate every glorious sensation I've experienced with you and I never, ever will.
The pleasure is far outweighed by disregard, dysregulation, and disrespect.

You have proven for years that my body is the only piece that matters.
Not my mind, nor my talent, nor my accomplishments.
Not my kindness, nor my care, nor the ways I have given both to you.
Empathy and emotional intelligence might live in you, but you have given me no evidence of their existence.

I don't give you the fullness of my words because, when presented with the simple truth of how you hurt me, you choose again and again to repeat the pattern of harm.
You must believe that the passing of time works like an apology.
You are wrong.

I don't know what waits for me on the other side of you.
I hope there is someone gentle, kind, beautiful, loving, and clear.
Someone who doesn't make me question the place or worth I carry in their world.
Someone who cares for and about me and allows me to care gently and consistently for them. Someone who takes me to bed and then wants me to stay.
Someone who tells me to stay.

I have wasted enough years on the empty hope that you will someday wake up and decide I am worth more than last minute, late night, drunken texts.
I have wasted enough evenings thinking I must savor crumbs, believing such minims a meal.
I have wasted enough breath in the shower and car and long halls of abandoned buildings delivering monologues to the air, knowing you will never be sober or interested enough to listen.

You are a monster who mindlessly devours my time.
You are monstrous in the flippant way you enjoy the what but never the why of me.
You are a monster that believes he is blameless after saying, “I don't want anything serious,” yet you weep in my arms and fall asleep inside me.
You are monstrous for kissing my stretch marks and my forehead and then telling me you don't have any time.
Except when you need comfort, except when you need safety, except when you need pleasure. Your time is the only time.
You selfish boy.

I regret singing with you.
I regret learning what gentleness feels like, in your bed. It should not have been with you.

It should not have been with someone who caused me pain and excused it as keeping things casual.
I will never immortalize you.
It will take years to unlearn this yearning, but I know I am capable of committing better men to memory.

You will fade and you will blur and I will find someone who deserves to be made into poetry.