I can never stop the what if’s,

The maybes, or the who knows -

His escapisms and justifications,

All his not-today-but-maybe-tomorrows.

I don’t know if I will ever be okay

I don’t know if he’ll ever truly be gone

I want to forget him, I want to kiss him —

An apt but much-loathed paragon.

Why can’t he ever just leave me alone?

Why does he text me every few weeks?

Does it bring him great pleasure to laugh at my pain

To crush me just as my interest piques?

Is heartbreak an event or a cycling round?

Are you supposed to move on or repeat each demise?

Cause what if instead of loving to love,

He loves it the most when there’s pain in my eyes?

Why can’t I seem to erase every trace,

Every thought, every memory, every mistake?

Why can’t I ask him to tell me goodbye?

All I’m doing is causing my own heart to break.

Cause it’s him I hate most, when I can’t hate at all.

It’s him I love even in heartbreak’s tight grip.

His love woke me up but his scorn damned me more.

And I’m much too far in now to abandon this ship.

He smiles that smile he knows I love most,

He says the right words and does the right things.

He says sorry with kisses, and bribery too:

Paid trips to Vegas, and sapphire rings.

But I know he’s still playing an old, boring game,

The one where he wins and I constantly lose.

He’ll win me back over then shove me back down,

Force me to love him when I beg to refuse.

I frantically search for some saving grace,

A friend who can pull me off this worn path,

But no one is there, my friends have all gone

They’ve left me to drown in this growing bloodbath.

They gave up on me a long time ago,

Gave up when I couldn’t give up on him.

Now they’ll watch as I take my very last breath,

But it’s my own fault - I never learned how to swim.

What is it called — this thing I’ve become?

Where I can’t quite break free, to my own great dismay?

I know he will hurt me, I know how this ends,

It’s a rerun of a rerun of a banal cliché.

Yet no matter how much I fight my own mind,

No matter how much I beg me to run,

Still always I watch as the train wrecks the scene,

Where I’m ever the murdered and never the gun.

But what would it say if I finally gave up?

If I killed hope instead of letting it burn?

Would it make me a traitor, a fake, or a fraud?

Would it get me a hypocrite’s brand in return?

And what kind of example would it make to the kids,

If I hardened my heart and jaded my mind?

Would their little souls care that I gave it my all?

Or would they always think love and hurt intertwine?

How do I love him without loving him at all?

How does a person live in that fire?

If Garth thinks life’s best inside the flames,

Then what must it be for the ones on the pyre?