Poison

12/07/2020 -  Poem a Day Compilation



It was May, 2004

And I stood outside the Enmore

Taking in the lights of Newtown

Waiting for the doors to open.



You’d bought the tickets so long ago

When we were better together

So, tell me why I was there

Waiting for you to arrive.



You were always late.

It was one of my pet peeves.

And you knew it annoyed me

More than almost anything.



You loved that band and would say

“Every rose has its thorn”

Whenever I brought it up

But you were more thorn than rose.



This night out was the last gasp,

The last nail in the coffin perhaps,

Of a relationship that was already dead

But just hadn’t realised it yet.



Life loves a tragedy, I suppose,

And we were absolute proof of it,

Two big personalities on a collision course

Destined to burn up worlds in our wake.



That night was supposed to give us

Something to believe in –

A shared past to cling on to

And rekindle what we had.



But there was nothing left to salvage

From this car crash of a relationship,

And standing in that line I knew

That this would be a last hurrah.



You used to call me your fallen angel.

I was really a bird whose wings you’d clipped,

Wanting desperately to be uncaged,

Set free in the big wide world.



Looking back, I can see tight you clung

To the idea that I was this perfect girlfriend

Who made you look good by extension

But in reality we ripped each other apart.



Life goes on, even when our hearts break,

Because we know what we deserve,

Even when that realisation hurts,

And being second best is not it.



I’ve lived so much more since that night

Without you holding me back

Or telling me it wasn’t worth my time

And making me afraid to try,



Now I ride the wind wherever it takes me –

I’ve seen the world without you,

And met the most interesting people,

All because I found myself in losing you.



You lived in your little bubble

And it was suffocating me

You said if I loved you, I’d stay

And maybe you were right.



I won’t forget you,

You were my biggest mistake,

But one I needed to make to grow

And find out who I was inside.



On that cool autumn night

Way back, over a decade ago,

I found out you were my poison

And I walked through those doors alone.