Love, Cait

I know what I have put you through.
I have dripped candle wax on your fingers
and asked you to sew security blankets, and I am sorry for that.
I have led you into thorn bushes
poured blood onto the soil and blamed the roses.
Time and time again
I have blindfolded you with the neck ties of angry men,
cinched them so tightly that stars popped behind your eyelids
and your baby hairs broke.

I know that I have passed up feather beds,
have sought out coffins.
I know that there is grass along the path, surely,
but my feet seem to find the glass shards
and I lose time, waking up in needles.

Then again, there are days when
I know that I am bleeding, but
maybe I have forgotten whose fault it really was, was it
the roses, was it my ankles, should I have walked
into the garden in the first place?

I have been told that the men who hold the guns
are the ones who do the killing,
that they should be held responsible,
but I still worry that my teeth are hungry for their bullets.

My heart of my heart of my heart believes

that there is a happy ending in here somewhere,

and I am sorry that I spent so much time smearing it with black ink

choking and unable to swallow the possibility of possibility 

I'd like to say things will be different. 

I'd like you to trust me on this one.

But the track record is bleak, and I understand if you don't.

I promise I'll be here either way.

I promise I'm not leaving this time.