You have been in my thoughts

this week, despite the fact

I have forgotten everything

about you:

   the particular blue of your eyes,

   the shape of your hands when they hold things,

   the curve of your lips when you smile,

   the warmth of your chest, of your arms,

   the touch and taste of your love,

   of your good enough.

 

Perhaps my memory loss

stems from how quickly I lost

each of the above from

the moment you uttered love

in a different direction

and blamed it on my inability

to be enough:

   giving you my innocence wrapped in bloody ribbon, wasn’t enough

   forgiving you time and time again, wasn’t enough

   letting you ogle and touch, wasn’t enough, especially when it was anyone

   but me,

   writing you thirty one letters so you could fall school-boy-in-love

  with another, wasn’t enough

 

   saying sorry

   squeezing my eyes shut when your fist met the wall

   beside my head (twice)

   kissing the cold shoulder you gave me,

   letting you have me in sore silence,

   eating fish and chips at the side of the road

   because your parents’ marriage had failed,

   carrying all of this hurt,

   letting you add to the wounds

   and take pride in the scars,

   casting you in the prima donna role,

   as the victim,

   holding your hand,

   picking you up and cradling

   you to sleep –

 

wasn’t enough for me to be enough so I said ‘enough’.

enough, enough, enough.

 

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Poem: © Kristiana Reed 2019

Between the Trees UK

Between the Trees US

Available internationally