Parting Words

25 February 2026

https://poems.culturing.net/2026/02/parting-words/

But I will not walk away until I have finished
telling you all I see. Thanks for lending an ear.
It is a privilege to speak to one such as yourself,
so attentive and eager to please. But did you not
pick up on my irony? Were you too busy gorging
on praise? It was poisoned, my love, all along,
and now you have digested so much of it
I fear for your health more than mine.

--

It seems we were playing the same game
or at most half-playing, if you read
between the lines. You were never more
than a dream, the incarnation of a misreading
of my words, or an actual dream in my mind.
But that dream lives on and prospers
no matter your fate.

--

You have stared into the abyss, and now
the abyss is at home in you, slowly growing,
dissolving your organs, devouring what remains
of a heart which I still maintain is not wholly bad,
but more bad than good by the looks of things.

--

Did you think I would never notice, or that
it would come as a surprise that some women play games?
You have left enough clues to prove that you are such a woman,
and I had a hunch from the first. But I asked for a ride
nonetheless, and I mostly enjoyed it. It's a pity,
I really might have loved you, had the terms been better.