I am sorry for filling you with beer and bad thoughts,

then asking you why you shook.

I am sorry for pinching you, for hitting you,

for bruising the thin-skinned parts of you.

I am sorry for the names I called you when we were fighting.

You are not ugly.

You are not useless.

You would not be better off gone.

I’m sorry for almost throwing you out into the street

because my hurt was too much for me.

I’m sorry for bruising your cheeks,

then resenting the way people asked how that happened.

I’m sorry I let some people see you in the moonlight.

They didn’t deserve to know the color of your hips like I do.

I’m sorry for leaving you convulsing over a toilet bowl

because of someone whose name I can’t remember now.

I’m sorry this apology is ten years too late.

I’m sorry it will probably come again.

I’m sorry that I do not treat anybody else

as poorly as I have treated you.

I’m sorry

in ways I have

not yet learned

how to communicate.