Ambivalence

I know she loved me,

But it's hard to associate love

With hollow threats of violence

And an insatiable need to fill the silence.


I know she cared,

But she hasn't heard a word I've said for years,

And all my fears and tears never made it

Past the swirling vortex of self-pity.


I know I'll miss her,

But how do you explain missing someone

Who was relentlessly self-obsessed and built

A wall of nonsense between the two of you

That nothing real was ever going to penetrate?


She's gone; her body is ash,

Her life reduced to a pile of stuff

In my parents' garage.

Do I miss her, or a version of her I never met?

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