An Adhesive Thing

“You are not the man I thought you were.”

Those words, a writ, a razor-slit

across my heart. I died a little.

Years prior, crushed and struggling,

I tried to hold it together with a mask.

An adhesive thing…

It held my pieces in human-shape.

That man wasn’t real.

He was too damaged and weak to feel.

But, irony, oh, irony.

When I came out of my darkness,

Just enough,

I found I was much like the man

I pretended to be.

But, you had gone on.

The regret cuts away hunks of me.