You didn't break my heart; or, I used to have a notebook

September 9, 2024; this life, despite its atrophy sometimes fits me comfortably.

You didn’t break my heart.
My heart was already broken.
It was enlarged, infected from words,
I knew I should have spoken.

I used to have a notebook
but now when I write,
it’s scattered across paper
just before I sleep at night.
On pages looseleaf and spendrift,¹
held together by my memory
and thus dashed by the world.

Though I know that if I quit it,
everything: my job, my town, my family,
girls, my friends, my food;
if a day spread out before me,
I would find some reason to tack
this to another part of the brain.

These things I think about, like how
I turned you down and turned you away.
I rebuked the love you draped me in,
touched my shoulder, so unrelenting,
when you forgave me again.
You thought you might be one of many.
I assure you that you were not.

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1. “In My Craft or Sullen Art”. Dylan Thomas.