To Any Girls with Bullets and Arrows

All the girls 
who loved me and
eventually left me 
knew I had a writing habit.


So, 
they kissed me on the cheek
and said things 
that my mind heard as
“you need this pain for your art”
“you need to stretch yourself”
”it’ll be good for you to grow”
“you can do better than me”. 


I suppose these phrases 
were meant to console me.


Well, how dare they.


I don’t know if their goodbyes
improved my writing
or perhaps I passed my creative peak
long ago,


but store this away
all you girls with my name 
on your bullets and arrows:


I’ve had enough of the pain
and tears just make the words 
sound stupid anyway
and the morning after is always worse 
than the night before.


So 
even though your leaving 
would fuel another contribution
to the canon of the 
self-pitying written word 
writ swollen and drunk after midnight,


please 
stay.




[Posted for D'Verse Poets Filling the Gaps . This was an especially tricky assignment, as I try to make my poems completely self-contained and self-explanatory (with no need for explanation).  That said, here's an old poem from 1988, when I was having an particularly self-pitying night. Hoped you liked it.]