This Is Not Another Poem In Which I Miss You

this is not another poem in which I miss you,
or your mouth on my neck at 2 in the morning.
not your hand in my back pocket and my fingers
tracing your sunken chest.

no.

no, this is the poem I remember that a fish caught on the line does not think back fondly on the one who pulled it from the sea.

this is the poem I remember love that demands reassurance again and again, and again,
is not the kind of love people want to see on their TV screen.
it just ends up on Tumblr, sloppily,
or worse, drunken – through broken hearted speeches to strangers waiting in bars.

this love, or so we call it, far too bitter
to be anything other than a poem as a reminder.

a poem I don’t want to keep reading.