I’m sorry.

Artist: Mark Harrison

To all those I’ve ever loved

and left:

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry if I ever made it

seem, or feel, 

like you weren’t enough.

It’s not what I intend, and I’m learning

how to mend what I’ve given and sought

and sometimes forgot.

That there’s more to this than

feeling good, better, best.

That there is only me 

to hold, to have, to let down, grieve and

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry to all those

I never said why

I closed my heart and believed it was best.

Why I thought living cold is how I’ll last.

Frozen in time, never to wither and grow old.

It’s me who’s afraid, 

afraid to tell the truth, to speak,

to love.

I’m sorry I led you into this trap.

I’m sorry I created this beautiful alluring thing to behold…

how could you resist?

Deliciously, selfishly, I watched as you entered

and settled in, molded to what I needed.

Until you bit back, gnawed your way out, asked to be equal,

and I asked why you put me here, why did you do this to me?

I’m sorry I forgot,

it was me who created this story 

from when I first sought to know,

what it felt like to love, to hold.

I called you into the watery depths.

And again I am afloat, 

leaving behind what has sunk to the bottom of my heart,

the weighted, the old.

‘I want to be free,’ I said.

‘I want to be alone.’

‘I want to be seen.’

What a crease in my manifold,

what a life I have created manifest.

What is it all for anyway?

A never-ending need.

I’ll do the dance, because there is no other place…

I’ll be here, anyway.