Save Yourself

From wooden desks

To white sand beaches

Long winded texts

Elation at your name on my phone

We canoed and traveled

Tasted and explored

You promised

You promised this time

Would be different

Last time was a fluke

You’d changed

You’d healed

From an immature kid

To a self-made man

I wanted to believe you

So I did

I believed when it was easy

When it was hard

And when it was impossible

When no one else did

I thought I needed someone

Our love was not patient

Our love was fleeting

A gust of wind

Just enough to push us together

But not enough

For our sails

To get us to shore

Our boat sank

The moment we stopped treading water

Rushing in from all sides

I had one pail

Against a raging current

You threw your pail at me

And jumped ship

With no warning

Or thought for me

Leaving me to drown

I held fast to my pail

And kept bailing

All on my own

Patching the holes you left

Mending the helm

All on my own

You promised it was different

I promise now I know

You were wrong

I promise

I learned to save myself

I am my own captain

And I won’t ever let myself drown.