Waiting Room

A Poem

Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash

i’m sitting where you left me
on the road between
heartbreak
and unhappy endings

and i knew you
were nothing
but someone
i couldn’t trust

not for the long haul,
not for a lifetime

because you’d broken too many hearts —

and you couldn’t be trusted
to holding mine
(not at all, not at all, not at all).

i sit right where you left me,
wondering where i went wrong,
and why you tried your best
to hide what was true

(and you were never honest,
and i hated that —
as if i couldn’t be trusted
to hold my own fate)

and someday you’re going to know
what it’s like to lose me,
really lose me,
and you won’t know

what hit you —

because i was never just a placeholder
for something else you couldn’t name