You promised to change,
But you didn’t.
Not really.
And over time
It has become painfully obvious,
As I have dared to see the truth,
That you never really wanted
The change itself, for its own value;
You only wanted to talk me
Into sticking around.
And about that change—
I have wholeheartedly wished it for you,
But no amount of wishing can make you
Want what you don’t really want.
And, yes, I expect
That you will say
I’m wrong about you
And that you really do want it,
And you’ll swear that
You’ll prove it to me.
But throughout all these broken promises—
Of which the one you’ll make right now
Will almost certainly be just another—
I have been slowly changing.
I have come to understand
That the only way you can prove it to me
Is to walk away and prove it to you—
By actual change,
Apart from your drive
To have me around.
So let us part ways, friend,
That you can see for yourself
What you really want,
Because I see that I’ve been
Enabling you in your self-deceit,
And you have been using me—
Abusing me, actually—
To hurt yourself,
Of all things!
And that makes
Any sort of close relationship with you
A really bad idea for us both.
For I, who had hoped
To be good for you,
See that you don’t really want
What’s good for you—
Even though
You say you do.
And I see we’ve never really
Gotten past that lie
Since we started,
And that it was a mistake
To have tried to
Wish my way past it
Until now.
And should go ahead and say
For the record that
I have learned that
You’ll likely want
To frame all this
As a lack of forgiveness
On my part,
Without ever acknowledging
The heartless lack of repentance
On yours.
And that pretty much sums up
The dysfunction that has
Plagued us from the beginning—
Which I am now willing to see
And you are not.
