The Broken

Originally Written in 2007

I should die…
for these hands have hurt you
and my words are like salt on your wounds.
These pages of your life are blotted out by
my name.
I hate myself for bitterly nursing my wounds
when it was your’s that were the deepest.
You say I said it best when I said nothing at all…
but it must be that the words unsaid
were in fact the ones that hurt the most…
Even now…
as my love burns for another
I can’t understand my time with you.
It seems that we both have been damaged
in ways neither of us will ever fully comprehend.
Were we ever really in love
or were we just desperate for understanding
reaching out blindly into the cold world?
But looking back from this point
I never really knew you…
I understood you no better than I did myself.
So why now do I feel these pangs
when thinking of you
…a stranger?
These feelings that linger
like dust on the shelf of memories:
Regret for the things I said
for the things I never did in fear of it all going too far?
Or is it rather
a pain completely disconnected from
myself…
yet so distinctly mine…
the empathy of the broken.