Hurt

Give me half a chance
and I will break your heart in two,
tearing tiny paper pieces
like confetti in the sky,
that scatter in the slow-spun drift
of a single afternoon,

I promise I won’t mean to hurt you,
and when you cry,
I will wish I’d had the strength
to stem the flow of tears,
but I am weak,

believe me,

except I know you won’t believe me,
you’ll say ‘how can you say
you’ll leave me,
when I can feel that, when you hold me,
you are never letting go?’

But the truth is that I hold you
because I know that I will lose you,
that one day I’ll reach out to touch you
and watch you slip between my fingers,

and when that day comes I know
that I won’t even try to catch you,
or hold on to the hollow
of your scent upon my lips,

it’s not that I don’t care,
or that for now I do not love you,
it’s just that,
watching distant stars
as they descend in reservoirs,
I know that it is written
that my destiny is to hurt you,

trust me,
given half I chance,
you’ll see that I was right,
and when that day comes I promise
you will slowly learn
to hate me.