To Any Girls with Bullets and Arrows

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

They kissed me on the cheek
and said things
that my heart 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,

but,
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.