By: Charlotte Edwards

Dear all the men in my life
Correction
Dear all the toxic men in my life

I will not write a poem about you
Some men aren’t worth the words
I won’t romanticize our fights
And the way my lungs burned
When I would scream at you
I won’t make girls fall in love with you
Boys envy you
I can’t romanticize a crime
Some men aren’t worth a poem

You do not get to hear the knots of my metaphors
As they form and kiss your ears
I am tired of learning the same lesson over and over
One day you’d think I’d learn that people are not medicine
I find myself addicted to people that hurt me

I tell myself
Some poems are not meant to be written
Some poems are better locked in my heart
Than locked in your brain
I rather walk backwards into hell
Than write a poem spinning a tale
About everything you put me through
Some men are meant to be forgotten

I won’t write a poem about
how I almost apologize
Even though I can’t remember
What I did wrong
Remember an apology without change
Is just manipulation with a smile
I will not string pretty similes
To form your stories
I can’t write a poem about you

I won’t write a poem about how
You are a depressed man
That just needs someone to save you
Sorry I’m not rehab for your broken heart
I won’t write a poem about
How I used to admire you
Your sentences could build
castles and cathedrals
Yet you chose to use your words to burn
And I still have the ashes in my mouth
The same way
you still have the fire in your eyes

Tell me:
Why are women the songbirds of change
To your deaf ears

I refuse to write a poem
Painting you into this pretty picture
Of words that cascade from my mouth like a waterfall
You don’t deserve to be beautiful
If anything I will give you a mirror
And you can tell me what you see
A man or someone who pretends to be

I am tired of the men
That beat love out of women and call it strength
Some men don’t deserve to be called men at all

And to the women
who write endless excuses for these men
I say to them:

I believe every woman has a door to her heart
The door is always locked
And some men come with keys
Others come with hammers
Know the difference

They always teach you how to open doors
But never how to close them
Because some men aren’t kind
And some men don’t deserve your love poems

Dear all the toxic men in my life
I will never write a poem for you
Because let me remind you
Some men-
No correction
You aren’t worth a poem