i was there when you scratched up your arm
with a kitchen knife of mine.
i was there when you groped that girl on the dance floor
during the highlighter party at your frat house.
i was there when you realized you had feelings again,
and when you forgot i had them, too.
i was there when you discovered the old home movies,
when 10 minutes became 3 hours.
i was there the night you called me 17 times
after you had broken my heart.
you tried to hide the knife under my pillow
but you weren’t quick enough,
and i grabbed you and hugged you
while you cried and told me you hated me
and asked me to leave so you could die.
it was right after we decorated matching t-shirts,
and you had drawn a heart over my heart
with your initials inside.
i played beer pong with your friends
and tossed my hair over my shoulders,
pretending to be cool with everything.
you stood over me as i sat in the empty bathtub
and told me that you were constantly imagining
other women naked and that you wished you could
fuck all of them.
i stayed at your apartment that night anyway,
my back toward you on the futon we shared
for 10 weeks in the summer of 2010.
you slipped into that first depression
because baby sam didn’t have a mother or father anymore.
i would be there every time you told that story
to another woman and believed that stunned silence
meant she was in love with you.
sorry to say she wasn’t.
you sent frantic facebook messages
to everyone i knew because maybe i had died.
i answered at 10 the next morning and claimed
i had no cell reception in the country,
and i lied about kissing someone else.
