It is funny that you’ve come to me now
years later,
lives later,
when the wheel has so completely turned
and the cycle repeated itself,
and you want information
that could have been provided
so long ago.

Yet
if it’s what you want
I’ll do what I can to provide
some sense of review
of where we went so miserably
tragically wrong.

Our relationship
– if relationship it could be called –
was brutal and short
though the eternity it felt like
was one of those long eternities
a surprise twofer sort of deal
that extends expansive
to a further torturous degree.

Ours was less a love of the ages
and more sexploitation B-movie.
It was a war film
and a horror story
and an action flick.
It was tension and release.
Insult and defense,
day after day
after irredeemable hour.
We were ugly together.
We were toxic.

And I miss it
of course
for everything else has been tame in comparison
but they’ve also been short and ugly
for I learned lessons from us
lessons I internalized
and can never seem to forget.
I try to learn from where we went wrong
but I seem doomed to only repeat us
with actor after actor
taking your role.

Which doesn’t mean
now that you’re again available
that I want to see you again.
I couldn’t bear that
and don’t think you’d want that either
unless – you…
you don’t?
Right, of course not.
Never…
Anyway, we were bad.

And I don’t know if you can transform this history
into a worthwhile education.
I know I haven’t.
I just know what I miss you
and I never want to see you again
until you next need me.