women hold up half the sky,  mao tse-tung

i didn’t want you to leave  i just needed you to let go
to stop squeezing so tight  trapping me inside the spaces
you don’t want to visit can’t stand to be a part of

i wasn’t asking you to leave i was just asking that you let go
not hold on using me as your life preserver though you know
i can’t really swim and i don’t like the feeling of being burdened

it was not my intention to hate you to grow
against the forest of strained happiness that became
tension that killed the garden we had planted together in the

making of this life that now only one lives
you see it wasn’t my intention to push you
out or get you to leave i just really needed you to

let go so i could breath and stretch
and bend and be
i just really needed you to let go

free me from the vise that held you together
pulling me apart there were so few pieces of me
left in the spaces i used to store

you in my heart

i had no idea you would think let go meant
goodbye or that my asthmatic plea for air would
be seen as abandonment i just couldn’t

sustain any longer the suspension of all that is
you in the midst of what had become of us
something had to give so that i could live

some kind of life worth me believing after
sinking under the we i sustained for so long
i just never thought you’d think

what i had meant was go away
like a child being punished for eating
the last scoop you shuffled off to your corner

taking your bright blue ball pouting
you cut the rope connecting we and left only
me shattered

i wasn’t asking you to leave

just really needed you to let go
stop holding so tightly  even as i
struggled against the folds of you

you couldn’t wouldn’t let me
as you went it was me you kept
how is that

how is it the one thing
i needed
got misconstrued turning a let into

a left

leaving me wondering
could that have been
what i meant