I choose me — a poem

I choose me.
Ending repetitive cycles,
Countless endings
Unendings. One-sided
Acknowledging, apologisings.

‘Ardent’ conversations.
So loud and expressive
They masked your silence
As you stood nodding,
Smiling, smug, arms crossed
Across the chest
Where on occasion,
you’d let my head rest.

While I smiled at
Slivers of attention
That brought you back
As victory flags,
To an arena, I believed,
While still blood-soaked,
Would now turn from sand
To rock
And be our foundation.

And while I know you love me
In the way you love.
It is not the way I love,
And therefore it is not a love
I can use as binding
For the bricks
Of a relationship
I wanted to bring into.
A life with a child,
And a home with a heart
As deep and worthy as mine.

You reached every wall,
And reverberated off them all,
And broke very few.
As the process of Us
Made for very little room
To excavate and hold
The little me waiting,
With bruised and splintered arms
For little you to hold
And heal together.

Your selfish, maudlin, mixed-up ways
Made for interesting evenings
And silent days.
Never an ounce of sunshine
Chlorophyll-grasping growth
For our offspring trees
Flowers and meadows.

I tended them alone
And while they flourished
That was because of me,
Not you.
And when my homestead
Contains my True
You’ll peek inside and wish it was you.

And maybe, I’ll still wish it were too.