This Is Not A Love Poem

[J Hillenburg]

You never loved me, I could make no sense
of the fact you would not share your heart.
We had shared many battles most intense,
and we had gotten through the difficult part.
But you proved you had no appreciation
for the sacrifices I made then for your sake.
You did not love me, and that realization
was very nearly too much for me to take.

And I certainly know that you did no better
because all of those men, I knew them all.
The cunning hustlers, the trite men of letters
from institutions who kept you in thrall.
With attitude to spare, they struck a chord
that obviously resonated with your past.
I wrote my poems, but you were so bored,
empty of interest, and terribly downcast.

I should have expected no less, self-serving
as you are, things could have been worse.
It seems that I find myself always deserving
of devotions so misguided they are a curse
So if this poem finds you in troubling times
believe me when I say there are worse fates.
To have dealt with the heart in feeble lines
written desperately in the most dire straits.