Joshua Legister Poet Blank verse

What Was Promised

Did you ever see me as I was
did you know I could swim that deep,
sink through the dark
and still come back carrying you?

I lay beside you, surrounded by hope,
thinking, darling, I do.
Then came the flash
rage like lightning
and everything I wanted was stripped away.

A kiss on a staircase.
Absolute disrespect.

Think on that.
Living in a world where you saved him
makes my chest cave in,
makes me want to tear the fabric of the sky.

You burned me twice.
Each time, through someone close.

I proposed in front of him.
The Da Vinci lock matching keys.
I meant eternity.
You opened it… and walked away.

You must have hated me deeply
to do that.
Say what you want about me
I could never have done that to you.

You chose him over me.
No detective alive could dispute it.

I bettered myself, yes
but there is a place in my mind
that knows this truth:
when someone disrespects you like that,
they don’t just hurt you
they grind you into dust
and laugh.

All I asked was that you try.
You didn’t even turn away.

Listen not to what someone says
words are easy, often honest
but watch their actions.
Intent lives there.

I’m sorry, kids.
Some things people do to each other
are quietly evil.

I couldn’t destroy her
I loved her too much.
I couldn’t take revenge on him
because then there would never have been us.

That knowledge gnaws at the back of the mind.

Still, I’m grateful I loved you.
I’ll love you forever and a day,
no matter how deeply you wounded me
because you felt like home.

But when that home burned,
you didn’t help rebuild it.
You expected me to do it alone.

That isn’t partnership.
That isn’t shaking hands
or keeping promises.

A word is all a person truly owns.
I thought I gave mine.
I never took yours.

My children
just know this:
this is what it looks like
when a man is broken
by wars, roads, snakes, betrayal
and when the one ring you need most
is taken,
your home defiled,
your hands tied
by someone who said they’d try
and lied.

I’m sorry.

Something in me died.

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