Wherefore art thou, Algernon?

Sometimes I’d like to know just what you’re thinking.

Other times I think it’s all too much, for when you say you love me.

I know that I will never be enough.

Because I untied that which I knew I couldn’t keep, to find I was anchored by my feet and you were on the shore looking away as I could help but notice all that you would not say.

And I remember who I am supposed to be, and as I try to jump and save myself

I’m cut by all your misplaced anger, lying on an open shelf.

That is keeping us from finding what it is you can not name

I was never her and this bubble wrap only has a few more feet to cushion the blow of not having your love and knowing it was shipped to Spokane with more fragile stickers than a glass vase filled with a lily on my grandfather’s grave.

And as I kiss you goodbye I feel as if I could be kissing an animal who knew remorse more than you.

I am not sad, instead, the little girl who dreamed of love is banging on the door of a forgotten world that may never actually be mine to hold and I look into my baby’s eyes and wish I can tell her that fairytales exist

But we all know that is not how it is.