man overboard...

I want to tell him I am no good
for anyone. That if he’s down
in this alley looking for love
he’s in the wrong place, darling,

this is a wasteland where nothing
grows, a world full of dark, dead eyes 
and stagnant water, a bulletin board 
so broken he can’t pin his hopes on.

I am a ship so full of cracks 
it’s bound to sink. He stays anyway.

He thinks he’s all endless ocean, 
a map with no corners. A world 
with no edge. He thinks I cannot 
see the fevered drought in his bones,

the thirst from waiting for someone 
you love to come back from the war. 
So much purblind hope, so much faith.
He thinks this is a war we’ll win.

I tell him I am no good for him.
Nonsense, he says. He stays anyway.