is this the way
(it has to be)
lest I pretend not to know
– of love where love is said aloud
called (by name)
to home

reasons you have –
and words to make me stay

(reasons you have
for keeping me
this way)

I won’t go
(please don’t let me)
– how I hate goodbyes
lines redrawn across an angry page
(yet here am I)

I won’t beg
and you wouldn’t want me
(to crawl)

I’m too old
for making good
on promises left unsaid
– too gone
(to think I came)
to lose it all

. . .