In Love With a Fantasy

A Poem

Photo by Anastasia Tooming: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-lingerie-reaching-out-11090682/

wanting you was my downfall —
the pain and so much hurt
like a perpetual cut
lanced into my chest.

you were the prince,
that fairy-tale happy end,
but I never looked beyond
that charming mirror of yours.

they all warned me
again and again
that you’d never be true,
and I just laughed.

but was I ever
what you wanted,
what you needed,
in all that time?

maybe you saw me
as that wounded bird
you could nurse and fix
with no regrets to be had.

my mind told me stories,
and I believed you were the answer
to my every problem — big or small —
but it was my own delusion.

you were no knight
riding in on a white horse
to save me from myself
when you were just as damaged.