it wasn't you

all this time, these months, close to a year

neither of us able to make it

through to the other

we tried, dear

it wasn't me

and it couldn't have been you

i believed i was too crazy for you

too much to handle

not in the ways i behaved

but simply how my mind

was arranged

i wasn't trouble, but troubled

i didn't want you to see

any of it

anything

beyond what i felt

you

recognized in me

that night in late october

beautifully spent

in a strangers' shameless

exhilaration

the wet counter of the dingy bar and city lights shining on dark bay windows

moving from the park bench to the cold grass

it moving fast

from the first cradle in your arms and

to the last honest moment with you

i held back from then on

because i couldn't bring myself

forward

unable to reveal who i was

it wasn't you i was meant to go there with

pages of ask the dust

sweep over me

to the place

of arturo's drunken night

with camilla

he said some beautiful things

then

but she didn't hear them

and it didn't matter

because he said them anyway

and they weren't for her

or else

she would have heard

he spoke from some inner whispers

there

with her

then

because of her

but they weren't for her

or else

she would have heard

Chris, it wasn't you

though i loved you (and still do)

i reveal myself

to me only

and keep going

to show the one

waiting

the love i really am