A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

You know I never thought that highly of myself,
more aware of flaws and faults than any other
harsh critic who wanted to put me down.
Which is the chicken and which the egg:
my deep sense of alienation and inadequacy,
or the number of times and ways it was spelled out for me?
The joke was on all of you, not one of you
could drag my self worth into deeper mire
than the murky waters from which my own inner critic
calls to me. But now the joke’s on me.
Foolish. Naive. Too many romantic movies
and love songs. I believed
that my love could be enough. It was the one thing
I knew with certainty I had to offer. I can love
for an eternity of eternities. It is fierce,
loyal, immovable. I had deep conviction
that this alone would suffice, could hold, could heal.
I handed you my heart in all its spun-glass fragility,
a vessel overflowing with positive regard, good will,
generosity, esteem and devotion enough to turn
any scarlet banner a sophistic verdant. The lies
are so insidious, ubiquitous, the manipulation 
so ingrained that I may never know for sure 
the degree of premeditation versus ritualised habit 
mapped to the subconscious in childhood.
But it matters not. What matters is that it is not
my love that has died or has failed us or has faded
to ambivalence. The truth that matters
is that its object never existed, and you were complicit,
allowing, encouraging my childish faith in you, 
making promises you never counted on keeping, 
mining my compassion, my affection unsustainably,
using my own insecurities against me as the tools 
of your minimal labour. The ore
is depleted and this love is become abandoned
shafts, rotten wooden frames and rusted tracks,
and the signposts warning of danger will keep most out.
But the well is not dry, and this leaking is the love
that has found itself attached to a figment of my imagination,
and may as well be returned to the water cycle.