you promised integrity
and then disintegrated
you promised strength
and then tried to smother
and envelope me

beneath your consuming
canopy - your neediness
pathetic - in your attempts
at making me love you

i tried to walk gently
from your clutching
embrace - desperate
brambles entangling me

pulling at my hair and clothes
until i had to hack my way out
angrily wondering why i trusted
you - why i still can't untangle you
forever.

-Joseph Brad Kluge
1st Draft
27 August 1998