Part I · Illusion
Vagabond
August 22nd, 2018
Your lease was up.
You asked if you could stay a while.
I smiled—
said sure.
But I didn’t want this.
I just couldn’t be the reason
you had nowhere to go.
And once you stayed,
I couldn’t fail.
Not without becoming
every man you said
was violent,
lazy,
abusive,
a rapist.
Last week,
you screamed at me
for not defending you—
after you called my best friend a bitch.
You refused to apologize.
And still,
he was the problem.
Was he?
I don’t know anymore.
But I couldn’t make you leave.
I wouldn’t survive that version of myself.
You gave a lot—
but you took more.
Still,
I stayed.
Because failing
would make me
just like the others.