Apology

It’s always hard for me to know when creative work is actually “done,” but I guess I am ready to release this poem into the world. This is the one that came pouring out of me last week while sitting in my car in the parking lot before work. Writing and revising didn’t take me as long as I thought it would. I guess it had baked itself pretty fully in my brain.

Apology

Katy Scott
2025

The terms were set
Guard rails put in place
You extended your hand
And this time, I was the asshole.

So I searched for the poetry in the signal
Setting traps, waiting for a tug on the thread
Hoping the friendship was the throughline
And a hard punch to the stomach would sustain me.

Maybe the damage was done
Or did it become water under the bridge?
The young and confused do not see their mistakes 
That only decades make clear.