Should I Let Go?

A Poem

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

i’m addicted to your lines
as if they’re a drug for asphyxiation —
but i can’t let you close enough to breathe
when i’m still riddled with ghosts of the past.

and it hurts to see your eyes grow blurry,
transfixed on some far-off plane,
as if you could ever know what lies
beyond tomorrow’s grace or hell.

and it’s true i never wanted you to be
a pawn in a game, a chess piece on the board —
but i’ve alienated you time and time again
because i’m scared of what exists in the beyond.

and i’m a liar only because i have to be,
in the windows between gasps of words,
in that transfixed state of ephemera
leaking, leaking, blurring the lines.

i’ll only ever be free
if you just say my name aloud,
just as i’ll say yours aloud,
in that first blush of meeting.

it’s not a curse, it’s not a storybook,
it’s not a tale lost to time bent old —
but we’re going places, it’s true,
whether you see the road or not.