the apology

I sat on the corner of grace and memory
Stereo blazing hoping one day you might stop and listen
To this broken heart knock hard against the concrete
Through my chest and against the pavement
Establishing the beat of yesterday’s news and aged old dues
Of times when angels and demons ran through the forest
That was me and you and our love was crazy beautiful new.
And while I was painting the sidewalks of regret with “I’m sorry”
I heard an angel whisper in my ear, “No, not yet.”

Like a child I threw it all away, tossed my spray cans on asphalt
And flew. A thousand miles too soon, I ran like the fire in heart
Might leap through the engine and into my dementia.
Terrified, I forced out my wings and cruised through centuries of guilt
Wondering what might happen, what might come to be
If I ever returned to that fateful corner that painted across you
And me. And forever intertwining the destiny of whatever dreams
We chose to believe. And while you danced on burning coal waiting—
Waiting for some sacred chance that I might return and steal you
From the hell in which I had willingly and knowingly locked you within
I hid beneath the shipwreck of what could’ve been, of what would’ve been
If I had only taken the chance, the one moment to be still and remember
Remember those tear filled nights we stayed up all night listening
To the demons scrape the glass and the walls close in, breathing so heavily
That fog expanded out of the room connecting us two, eternally linked
And as our very souls cried out for grace, the bleeding knives asked for
Just—one—more—taste.
And fighting through the darkness, my addiction, my newest affliction
Became you and the way your hair fell gently across your face like the curtain
Hiding us forever away from the excruciating minutes that would lead to this
To you and me being just you and just me
To living like sirens only craving what could never again be
Because I was too afraid
To stand and say it. To admit it. To face it.
To see myself for who I was and who I’ll forever be
To love you for everything that you were and that you could be
To believe that nothing could stop us because nothing could catch us.

And like a fool, I let it all seep out onto the acid of distance, the illusion of miles
Believing, naively, that my heart and my mind could not connect, never to intersect
That reason could surpass love, as if reason could surpass me,
Surpass the inexplicable force that’s pushing your beating heart into my chest
Granting me those extra few seconds just to breathe, just to think—

And as I sit here, writing your name in crimson across the intersection of what I’ve done
and who I am to become,
I pray you take a second to listen and know, if only for a moment,
That within my every exhale, the following inhale will come from the dream of us
That same wonderful beautiful dream that I’m still tasting in my mind
In my hands, across in chest, and into the stream of the circulation that keeps this broken
heart beating
Beating so hard the resounding echoes still call your name.