everything that you tell me,

all of it –

it isn't true, is it?

you know

that I want to believe you,

with your fair hair and laughing eyes

(but I see now,

it isn't laughter in them but tears,

or hatred maybe)

you know I want you

to love me

but I just don't know

if you do anymore,

or if you did to begin with

and I can't win the war

or the battle

or even a lousy scrabble game –

(and I don't think the idiot

who coined the phrase

ever met someone like you

or else he would have known

love and war

are anything but fair

and besides,

they're the same thing)