retrospect in poetry

In retrospect,
the most honest love letter I could ever write
could ever written to a number of hers would be
“You’re beautiful because
you treat me like an
infallible genius.”
You can’t photoshop or airbrush in or out
the forgiveness of my many human flaws.
You can’t diet away or add with surgery
the exaggeration of my handful of strengths
or pretending that the strengths I have
are actually applicable to real life.
No arbitrary clothing size or
application of make-up products
can measure up to holding me in the night
and lying to me
“Everything is going to be okay, Mike.”
In retrospect,
I thought that admitting this
was going to make me sound like a real asshole but
I dunno
now I dunno
admitting it doesn’t feel so bad.
Maybe it’s something we all feel sometimes
that I just feel
a bit more often than others.
Yeah.
Tell a lie like that to me and
you will be as beautiful as can be.