I didn’t want to keep you too long.

I’ve started to think, maybe,

I idealized you

Some sort of goddess I made you.

You were my crutch.

Maybe you weren’t all you cracked up to be.

Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I didn’t want to keep you too long.

You always said maybe love

Is like letting the dog pee on your neighbor’s grass

Knowing the neighbor will forgive you

But you don’t need to ask for forgiveness

So long as they don’t know

Anything is amiss.

I didn’t want to keep you too long.

You would smile as you exhaled

Your cigarette up to the sky

And you always said you loved it

Because it was like a piece of

You was floating into the abyss above us

You thought was made of pie crust and magic.

Maybe you were the magic.

I thought maybe you were the one painting the sky pastel

Every morning

Because every morning

I would see it and taste your name on my tongue

I didn’t want to keep you too long.

But I knew as soon as you departed I would wish for you

And I still wish FOR you

Because you were afraid to wish for yourself

Afraid to blow out the candles

Afraid to trust in something past your nose

You changed your name.

Maybe you started smoking because

You wanted the wrong right boys to think you were pretty

No fair, I thought you were pretty before you met me

I know now that people never want to know you

They just want you to know and understand them

But I was fine with being a non-relation

As long as you knew I knew your basic direction.

I didn’t want to keep you for too long.

The paint would sting under your fingernails

And your hair would smell like herbs and reefer

Piano music would fill the halls at 5 in the morning

before you could use your magic to color the room bright

You changed your name.

You said that the whole world was a cherry in a pie

And we were all just waiting for that fork to scoop us up

And from there, what adventures were in store?

Maybe you were high then too

I always wondered what you looked up for.

I didn’t want to keep you for too long.

I used to beg people

To tell me they thought I was beautiful

And I needed you

Because you were the only one who would tell me

You thought I was ugly.

You changed your name.

You said the reason we’re all so shitty

Is because we love to hate ourselves

We listen to music that makes us sad

We idealize beauty that we will never posses

We fall in love with people who cannot accept us

We live to make ourselves wish to die

And we love every minute of those near death encounters

And we think ourselves beautiful because of it.

I didn’t want to keep you for too long.

You were always good at loving yourself.

You changed your name.

But I should have kept you longer.

I could have clawed

I could have tried every line in the book

I could have smiled and cloyed you with the buttery syrup of my words

On the pancakes of your ear

Because you thought my cheesy, terrible poetry was sexy

And I wanted to be your scratching post

In just the hopes you would

Hack a hair ball and find Your way to my lap and purr.

But I should have kept you longer.

There’s a Chinese proverb

“You die from the feet up”

And so if we’re going to die anyway

Put your feet up

And let this space become our home for a while

Talk with me through a feature length film

Leave me some bruises

You changed your name.

Someone told me they thought you looked so beautiful

And I got jealous

So I told them “I’m going to dance with her”

Maybe you were magic

Because I still feel like I’m dancing now.

But I should have kept you longer.

But the carriage will be a pumpkin

Given due time

And the men will become mice

As if that’s their only crime

But I should have kept you longer

You changed you name.

I wonder if this is what they’ll call my blue period

Which reminds me of when you missed your period

And I thought god damn, maybe this is my fucking chance

And in that split second I realized there was no way

The kid was mine

But I would have stayed with you just the same.

I guess it’s just extremely gratifying when someone makes you their bitch.

I should have kept you.

I should have kept you.

You changed your name.