Tough love

I’ve listened to you sob for days now
Pick yourself up off the floor
Don’t you realize we’re worth so much more?
This melodrama has played out
The time has come to close the curtain and take a bow
There’s no perfect script to this
but you nailed your lines
and weeped heartache into perfect poetic bliss
I know, they played you,
leaving you banged up with broken strings
and your song hopelessly out of tune
The lyrics sting like love notes
 jaggedly carved into the flesh of tender dreams
Love pierced knife wounds in your back
a trail of bloody footprints leading out the door
If only the memories would pack their bags and follow
But unfortunately even broken hearts are full,
no matter how hard we wish them hollow
So the story didn’t end in happily ever after
But you closed the book on fairytales long ago
We rolled the dice knowing the ways the wind was bound to blow
So you bit the apple of temptation
and the poison still grips
Snakes seduce and glass slippers always slip
Yet tears and angst won’t free you
Forgiveness is the only key
Stop scrubbing the stains and leave what could have been outlined in chalk
Walk away, the broken mess left behind
It’s yourself, you have to fix
Drown the sound of critical voices
For it’s me you have to face
Now it takes a lot of courage to trust,
But love is entangled with risk
so If I give this heart back, do you promise to take better care of us this time?

© Julia Pauhl, 2021