If you had wanted to learn how to smile,
I could have taught.

If you had no longer wanted to hide,
I would have found.

You cover up and run,

break to make yourself back up
into some distortion

like any evil thing would be
more beautiful than you.

If all your smirks and glares had left you tired,
I could have caught

and healed you ’til you’d even trust
another person’s arms.

But I can’t make you want to smile

or fall, or love, laugh or run
free.

Chained to your lonely,
feral stray of mine,
you still never hold them,
lest you start to cry.

The vulnerable and intimate
you would push away-
the kinds of love that move a person
into the same.

And I knew
that I could never
make you want to change.