Vachon Imagined

I wish I could be that for you—
the woman who doesn’t care,
the woman who betrays herself with lies
so she can have you,
so she can have fame.

I wish I could bend myself
into your dereliction of fantasy,
renaming adventure into prose,
renaming denial into promise.

But she could not make herself fit
into your paradigms,
into your mismatched and mistaken desires.

She could only be herself.

Which meant she had to let you go—
the final act of surrender
held for the final act of betrayal,
which led her to the certainty of honesty,
the certainty of where she is,
and what she cannot do.