A/N: Inspired by Jeanann Verlee's poem I'm Sorry. Again, hers is x1000 better than mine, so go have a listen. Also, this was supposed to have a lot more spacing but FFN seems to be against that. Boooo.

Title from the Great Lake Swimmers' song Unison Falling Into Harmony.


i.

i'm sorry for all the mornings

you woke up alone.

i'm sorry for the days that

i never told you where i was going

or who with

or why.

i'm sorry i didn't trust you.

sorry i told everyone else not to,

sorry i thought you could do such a thing,

sorry i didn't listen.


ii.

i'm sorry i kissed you every night anyway.

i'm sorry i fucked you into the kitchen table

when i got home at night,

sorry our sweat mingled in a way our

hearts were never meant to –

sorry there was always something built to

come between us.

sorry i made them switch,

sorry i trusted him,

sorry i let the rat whisper in my ear

for far too long.

sorry i didn't tell you about it.


iii.

i'm sorry i lied.

sorry we were like two shadow men

in a world of grey,

sorry i couldn't find your honesty in the darkness,

sorry i didn't look hard enough,

sorry our world held us up so high for so long

and then

fell, like an angel

who ran out of hope.

i'm sorry you fell.

sorry i didn't catch you.

sorry we tumbled, hand in hand,

and didn't know what to do when

we reached the bottom,

i'm sorry we didn't know

there was a bottom to this,

sorry we didn't know this could end,

sorry we were so blind for so long,

i'm sorry

we couldn't see.


iv.

sorry you had to see me

like that, when i came back.

sorry i came back.

sorry my prison-bar bones were too sharp,

sorry my heart was too hardened,

sorry i spent so long picturing this moment

and still managed to fuck it up,

i'm sorry i couldn't tell you

i was sorry.

sorry i wouldn't say i love you,

sorry i found it so hard to touch you,

this you, old you,

you with your frail body and the battle scars

that weren't from war

but trying to piece back together a broken life

with only your two steady hands

and a handful of photographs

of a man who couldn't trust you.

sorry it turned out this way.


v.

i'm sorry you had to live like that.

sorry i couldn't have been there.

sorry for thinking you'd want me there,

sorry for imagining this whole new life where

we are in love

and in luck

and your heartbeat is the sound

of my alarm clock.

sorry i couldn't give you that.


vi.

i'm sorry i let you down.

i'm sorry i tried to pick you back up,

sorry my fingers kept shaking.

sorry we didn't know what to do with our hands

when we kissed.

sorry you were an old man.

sorry i never had a chance to grow up.

sorry i ruined this,

ruined us,

sorry we had one chance at

happy

ever

after

and i let the rat pull it apart

with his teeth.


vii.

i'm sorry for how it ended.

i'm sorry i left.

sorry i had to.

sorry i thought of you

in there

every

single

day.


viii.

sorry the only thing that

could make it any better was the thought

that you were sorry too.


ix.

sorry i loved you.


x.

sorry i still do.