it's a strange feeling to lose faith in someone
you previously trusted, unfalteringly

to know they are fallible and have failed you
and will therefore continue to fail you
(failure doesn't happen just once)
and all the time you held out hope for them,
believed in them,
was wasted, foolish, naieve time

to have some person become almost a stranger to you -
that comfort of their presence torn away
until they become just another acquaintance
with whom you happen to have shared many experiences
(and even those are tainted with the sugary flavor of gullibility)

it's happened with everyone
and still i am duped into believing there will be someone,
well-intentioned and strong enough,
to not let me down

and each time someone else fails
my heart, once so healthy,
calcifies and cools
a little bit more

four years of jittery hands and white knuckles
being alone and faceless and constantly bound
in my crutches, like a child with weak hips
comforted by that firmness of man-made metal,
making my hands sweat and smell like copper

what was i waiting for all that time?
a savior? a hero. in all likelihood, yes.
and realizing again and again that strength only comes from within
and the external world only chips and scrapes at you
and leaves you feeling appreciated and only needier for it
less yourself and looking to others all the more

i have the impulse to follow the same habitual routine
i've followed every night
but i have nothing left to say
i'm too tired to make conversation,
too tired to apologize again
and it would only feel like rough-grained wood
sliding the lining of my intestines
sour and grating and unreal

i just want to feel myself rise up from my body
and hover in nothingness
for one more night.