napowrimo #8: d

five years ago, i promised myself i'd never write a poem for you again, and it's a vow i want to keep because if you don't keep vows to yourself, you might as well strap on a pair of wings and float away, but shhh... have you got my back for a minute, because maybe if i conceal this in a long paragraph, the gods of my vows will be fooled, because see the only thing you deserve from me is poetry, the purest, cleanest words, from the cleanest place inside me that maybe (i hope) still lives somewhere in me and still belongs to that stupid girl who once came to your house on an afternoon bus looking for the stars inside your eyes but found instead a sadness so deep she had to pour herself into it even though she couldn't swim but she dove in headfirst and you stood really still letting her find her way through the many tunnels and she got lost for a bit, but today i need to say, thank you for not moving, for letting her find her own way back, because it meant the difference between this and something else i don't know what but i'm sure something not good for both of us, and for that there will be nothing dark or bad in me, nothing that resents or wants to hurt you, nothing that hates how it turned out, because who knows, i'm sure this is exactly how it should have turned out, how in fact it should have been in the first place, really; this is the chance we should've given each other--yes this is a regret of sorts, the last one perhaps i can't let go of because it was so unfair what we made each other feel--and yes this calm came years too late but it came at last, at last it came, and for that i will always dance, for that you still somehow make me smile, for that this letter of the alphabet will always belong to you.

(read write poem prompt 8: "old flames")