i owe it to myself to stop loving you

sometimes i wonder what would have made a difference, if anything
if salvage was something you had long since tucked away
a bone china plate snared in the jaws of a tempest
the sizzle of our silence splintering the glass-bottom bridge

tell it like it happened
how i held us like a crumbling basilica
but you kept your hands behind your back
my pleadings droning like background static you could not make sense of
i try myself into an infinite loop

some days i am still kneeling at the altar
some days it still hurts to be touched by fingertips

if my heart wasn’t bound by veins i wonder how high it would have flown for you
if my tongue wasn’t tethered by a frenum i wonder what i would have said to you
maybe if i had a second life i could have tried again
but just once, i want to be something that doesn’t wait
rain that falls before the clouds are full
stars that outshine the sun in broad daylight
let my last image of you be your silhouette morphing into an omega

see, people talk about regret all the time, about squandering
and taking things for granted
but what about the girl who loved, and knew it, and acted on it?
who cherished every second and never wanted to let go
she, who still ended up on the floor
what then?