The Landlord of Mona Lisa’s Smile

I wish that I found myself sooner, so I had time to fix what I left behind me, withered and destroyed in my rampageous wake. While the fallout begins to settle around me, and I lay here on my deathbed with particles of dust burning into my eyes, I realize I should’ve taken the time to love myself first, before all else, so I could’ve had the confidence to chase my dreams earlier in an attempt to ratify a peace within. Only then would I have achieved the capacity for loving someone with absolute surety, with a higher level of maturity, and with an undeniable honesty. Only then could I have offered you a rent-free key to an uncluttered room dedicated just for you, with your nameplate fixed on its entrance door, deep inside my interior walls.

I wish I had loved you more.

I wish I had loved you deeper.

I wish I had loved you the way that you loved me, and regret not offering you the opportunity in return to feel the wholeness, and warmth that I did with you in my life.

Not loving you the way that you deserved, will go down as the Mona Lisa of my failures.