Blue

There are runs in our stockings.
We shouldn't wear such things in the snow.
It makes us slow to apologize
for mistakes we purposefully
make. And quick
to make love
by smacking our glass against
each other.
I could have loved you,
if you hadn't reminded me of myself
so much.
We shattered,
but before that we had cracked.
Hairlines and fractures in the
concrete wishing wells
we call eyes.
I exchanged life savings
into pennies.
Muttered a prayer in Hebrew.
Translated it into promises.
I promise to never be good
enough for you.
I promise to pretend
I had Eloise in my sights
and an eye to shoot straighter
this time.
Grant me a seventeenth chance
so I can fail to make it up
to you.
Blue is not pretty
like eyes welling up with wishes.
It's lying about sleeping
when I lay next to you.
Blue,
like the bay I threw dollar bills
into. Signed
with your middle name
and the love I fell
into. It was wet.
Warm like a bathtub with
the arms of an ocean.
These are things I am not.
I am not disgusted with myself.
I am not holding grudges against
my mistakes.
I am not looking for problems
or sabotaging us.
I am not afraid of being a father
like mine.
I am not lying!
I am not blue-eyed.
I am not blue.
I don't regret every goodbye
that I painted on my voice.
I didn't want to stay.
I didn't want to wrap myself
in your sheets and forgive
everything. I can't come clean.
I'm stained with spilt faith
but I've never lost God.
I tucked her deep, next
to my self esteem.
Locked them up and
threw away the key.
I don't miss me.
I'm not lying.
I'm not blue
I don't miss you.
I can't tell the truth.

But I've stopped sleeping,
hoping I can be happy in
something other than my dreams.
I'm not ready.
I can't burn the list of
sins I drag from my wrists.
Or the failures
bent like staples holding my smile down;
it'll never be big again.
So let me be the body you
left behind.
And perhaps I
can forgive the
weight of my skin
and find you.
Intertwined in the padlock.
When the key clicks,
the world will have to
forgive me.
I will be useless,
except for loving you.