Poem: I'm sorry to break your heart

Apologizing for the feelings I can't control and wishing her the best

I’m sorry to break your heart. I’m sorry to rob it of its shine.
Trust that mine has been broken a million times before.
Trust that I too cursed the ones who broke mine.
Yet here I am here, breaking yours.

Will these cycles of torment ever end?
Or will we roam here forever? 
Asking for love only from those who prefer us friends?
From those whose hearts from ours are severed?

I know this isn’t the poem you wished I write of you.
But o’ look through all these other poems, witnesses to all the times,
That I wrote through the night, trapped in my blues,
Of all the girls I once loved who, as I broke your heart, broke mine 

Because you’re in New York now! Welcome to the city of dreams! 
Trust that this city will break your heart
A million times before you leave,
In plane or in casket, in whole or in part.

But my friend Rumi, I’m sure you’ve heard tell of his art,
O’ he spoke to me the other day through time, 
And he told me to break my heart. 
Yes, to break my heart until it breaks open—open wide

And I know it may be hard to believe,
But when I say my grace and count my life’s lucky tokens,
Even as all the fragments of my heart I still crawl to retrieve,
I thank this city the most for this heart, this heart broken wide open.

Because the world comes to me now in poems.
Walt Whitman, who in my sadness oft keeps me company,
No longer needs remind me in his tomes
Of the source of all art. O’ Walt, I know it well already.

I’ve known my friend Rabindranath, yes Rabindranath Tagore,
Since I was a child. I read him well through my teenage years,
And all his poems of the infinite and divine that confused me before
Seem simple to me now, as I stumble home, drunk on four beers.

I know your promise. You know it yourself.
I think of how you spoke of this country, of all its pain.
And I know your art will serve it well,
Ease its sorrow, and guide it to freedom again 

It is told that when the Mongols to Nishapur came 
And raped and wrecked the city with flame,
That Attar, the city’s poet most famed,
Met them at the city’s gate
          And fought on, his sword to his hand still wed,
          E’en after he lost his head.

I see you the same, your sprit whistling through trees,
Your soul, like John Brown’s, marching on,
Fighting off this country’s worst enemies,
Well after you’re gone,
With the words that behind you leave.

For I have seen the meaning of your name,
From the Germanic, meaning universal or whole,
There is none better for an artist, one whose soul may never be tamed,
One dutybound to hold the universe aloft, its sins chastise, and its virtues extol.

So, write something of me.
Paint me o’er, as red as the devil, with shoeshine.
Make me the villain of all your stories.
I will make you the hero of all of mine.

          And trust this city will bless you in time
          With the love of someone taller, more handsome, more caring, less selfish than I.

          And you will be one with the one you love in this endless city of dreams.
          And the thought of me and all the pain I wrought will leave you completely.