Paint The Town Red

- Rift: Part II - Poem IX -

You asked me for so little, breadcrumbs and just my truth,

But I met you with walls I refused to break down

No letters on monthiversaries, no proof,

The love we had wasn’t already drowned

You reached for my hand when the nights felt long,

But I left you to hold your trembling fears

I traded our rhythm for another man’s song,

And silenced the much we built through the year

You asked me to try to talk to the woman in the chair,

To face all my ghosts and untangle the mess

But I chose to pretend they were never there,

And gave you my absence instead of progress

I thought love could survive with a spark now and then,

That our fire would keep burning without my flame

But love without tending turns lovers into friends,

When the one who should hurt forgets their name

I sensed the hurt in your eyes when I turned away,

Yet I told myself lies that you could forgive

Each time you begged me to choose to stay,

I chose the half-life I thought I could live

I left you alone in the house we made,

While I sought escape in shadows and skin

So the trust you gave slowly frayed,

Until there was nothing to hold within

You wanted a man who would fight for a vow,

But I let my own weakness pull me apart

I see it so clearly, the truth of it now,

You were asking for love, I was giving you scars

And now when I walk through the wreck in my head,

Your voice still repeats the words I misread

You gave me the world, I left it unsaid,

And painted the town all in a color of red