Time Bombs

What is your secret power over me?
I am a punching bag.
Why, although the blood still seeps from me
do I reject the bandage of acceptance?
Do I carry the seed of denial?
It says,
“Everything you feel is proof you still love her.”
“Every hurt, every wrong can be blotted out by:
One Embrace
Two Kind Words
Three Moments of False Hope.”
I'll carry a snapshot of me at my most broken
to reference on that day I see you again
and want to dive into you familiarity
and watch the grungy grudges peel away.
I’ll look at my Polaroid face and see my mouth say
“RUN FROM THIS”
What is your secret power over me?
Intermittent lover, convenient companion.
I was there when you needed me
and like hanging Christmas Mistletoe
good for brief romances,
but mostly hung out of sight.
Why, when the last thing you said wasn’t cruel,
do I want to go splashing back
into that stagnant backwater?
There is no future-bound current,
and the water stinks of past.
But I could sit forever, neck deep, in that
lifeless
joyless
kissless
hopeless
fruitless
doomed holding pattern we called
TRUE LOVE.
What the hell is wrong with me?