Better In This Lonliness Poem by Lonnie Hicks

I'll not ever know
why your heart turned;
why that door closed.

I'll not know if it was cruelty
or my own frailties.

But even if I knew
it was you
then
how could I reform
you?

Could I convince you that
you and I were best
and that she was
at best
manipulative
and in time
would
take that same heart
that shunned me
and rip it
out and hand it back to you?

How can I predict this
and even if true
would my own anger
accept you back
for you
or only if I did
it would be
an empty victory lap

and not you
I'd want.

If you were in fact not right for me
for whatever reasons there might be
I was right for you only in retrospect

since she had
lain in your bed
she had changed the you
I used to know
into the you
she'd hurt
and that is not the you
I'd want.

In all of this I am the me
I'd always been
the me I love best.

Hurt and harmed
heart-broken
and trembling
I 'm probably a better me
than you are a better you.

Much to ponder here
even
in this lonliness.