To All The Boys I'Ve Loved Before Poem by Harlequin Rose

To all the boys I've loved before
with brilliant minds
and persuasive demons
pretty faces
Botticelli angels
all I can ever be to you
is a darkness that we once knew
and this regret we've grown accustomed to
you see, we were strangers once
but I'll never love you
the way she does
and yet I fear
my confession is too late
and as it stands
I know you will hate me
until you forget me
but I will hate you longer
I'll be your villain
your bitch
drunk by six
with my lips wrapped around
too many cigarrettes a day
remember my disposition
as the smoke fades
I'm having one of those days
where I don't want to think about thinking
so quit interrupting my thoughts
with talks about
how you used to be my closest ally...

To all the boys I've loved before
your lips
pretty as a rose petal
speak to me of forgiveness
I can only imagine how it feels
you ask me for it
I deny you three times
until I forget
what there is to forgive
and yet you forgive me
like always, like yourself
and I'm here
half expecting to be killed
by the things you have done
but I live on
too stubborn to die
and I...I never forgive
that's how I recognize it
by what I don't do and can't do
I know what it is
because I must
and you would if you could
but what if you can't forgive
what
if
you
can't
forgive
me...

To all the boys I've loved before
it was not my intent
to betray you
or hate you
for breaking up what once was
you were
for a moment in time
just one of the boys
I once loved...