Like Nothing Matters

I served a sentence of self imposed  
exile because I couldn’t grow enough  
to grasp the concepts of years of failures  
fallouts and repeating cycles of mistakes  
 
I’ve walked back in with hat-in-hand-contrition  
too many times and it’s always been  
with a pack of matches in my back pocket  
because recovering pyromaniacs are worse  
than drug addicts  
 
every long winded apology and self exploratory  
delve into stream of conscious delivered  
new insights that led to dead ends and  
falling into the same patterns  
 
and still  
I would fuck you like nothing matters  
because I left parts of me at your feet  
I never knew existed  
we twisted around each other  
a tangled mess of our own desolation  
I whispered my madness in your ear  
and you reverberated the same frequency  
 
I wish I’d held you like he held her  
in all those romance novels I pretend I never read  
because I’m 6ft 2 with broken knuckles  
and miles of pain attached to the end of each fist  
it’s not chic to read when you could fit as an extra  
In a mad max film  
 
but I wish I could hold you  
one last time  
a requiem  
to what we could have been  
before I struck the matches  
and burned it all down  
 
 I’ve sung another apology  
looking for redemption I never earned