There's a side of you that I like.
At four in the morning, lights all on,
Your shaggy brown hair barely covers
How badly your dark eyes need sleep,
But we keep talking, my hand
Lightly placed in your palm;
The words coming out of our mouths
Aren't even slightly important:
We only keep talking so that
The silence doesn't persuade us
To do something else with our lips.
In the wakening hours of a new day,
We grow to know each other better;
I grow to love you more.

However, there's a side of you that I can't stand.
When it's three in the afternoon,
Your arrogance and insensitivity wounds me.
Although everything we said in the darkness of night Was light in meaning,
I remember every word that you spoke
And your secrets are locked away in my heart.
Apparently, you did not do the same with my words.
With cruel retorts and inconsiderate flirtations with other girls,
My heart is stabbed, burned, kicked, and
Broken over and over
By the one I had given it to.
You use my words against me
To douse my soul in liquid sorrow
And set it alight with disappointment.

Where is the you that I know so well,
The sensitive man at 4 a.m.?
Why must I tolerate you during the day
When you're too busy flirting with other girls,
To see how your double-edged daggers,
Shaped like harmless words,
Pierce through my ears and scar my mind and soul?

I wish I had never known you
When the hope-filled morning came to life.
It would be so much easier
If I had only known you in daylight,
So that the ghostly memories of you smiling
Against the harsh fluorescent lights
And the dark window filled with
The stretching fingers of dawn
Wouldn't prevent me
From taking my heart back.

12/04/2008

Posted on 12/04/2008
Copyright © 2025 Lyss Copeland