I can't

love you
if you've decided
that the one looking back at you
from the indifferent mirror
on all those haggard mornings
deserves to be stranded on that
waterless island.
How can I say you're wrong
to despise a shipwreck you know
on such brutally intimate terms?
Until you decide that
crawling up the Via Dolorosa
is simply a way of wasting
a cup you'll never be offered again,
and to end the ceaseless guerrilla war
with people who are no longer lying
in ambush,
you'll be too raw for me
to touch without being
electrocuted.
When you're
ready to leave the midnight blue
of a past that can never be changed,
and to give birth to someone you can be
proud to be alone with,
I'll be here.
Not to make you whole
or to complete you
or make up for everything that was ever
stolen from you.
But to love you as an equal,
as a friend,
and as someone
who deserves it.