the whole time

no kidding

the whole time

really

the whole time

never wavered
always the same

but

i kept hoping

he would change
in spite of the fact that the whole time he was always the same

clearly, those were times when hope was a form of madness

a sort of demandingness that kept a desperately passionate self denial alive
with a terrible sense of futility dragging like a big dead fish off the side of a small boat

hanging by a thread

no kidding

the whole time

he never gave me any reason to think
he would change
but i did

think that

the whole time