tell me a story

I wonder how you’ll tell the story
of how you met

It’ll be romantic
like
"you met across a crowded bar
and it was love at first sight…"
only you’re retelling the wrong story

She picked you up off the curb
outside the pub as you drunk cried
into the gutter a week after
your ex left you to move back
in with her parents

Not that I can talk
I once picked up a guy
who was contemplating suicide
and I can’t be sure
but there is a good chance
that fuck saved his life

It’s been a year since your new girlfriend
fucked her way into your heart
and if we have to be honest
I’m kind of jealous that someone
can love you when you’re broken
(no one loves me when I’m broken)

I’ve become a little too used to being discarded
a little too used to being abused
loving people with sugar-snap promises
that dissolve the morning after

I want romantic stories to tell
and you might be in the wrong one
but at least you’ve got one sewn into
the hem of your clothes  
there’s nothing romantic about the list
of tragedies scratched into my wall

I could tell you
but you’d run out of sympathy
before you ran out of booze
and there isn’t enough drink in the world
to erase all my bad decisions

My history is fractured with bruises
and screams and words I’ll never learn to trust

I don’t know how to love
I don’t know how to be loved
and if I died tomorrow I could honestly say
I’ve never been touched by a hand that loved me

So tell me your story in lies
of romance and redemption and starting again
and I’ll fuck myself to sleep with your words
just so I don’t have to feel so alone

© Indie Adams 2015