Charles Bukowski is better than anything

I'm sorry I didn't listen to you more. I'm sorry I didn't listen to halfway through whatever you were saying, at all. I'm sorry I didn't see you for what you were. And that what you were was to be slipped through my fingers in seconds. I'm sorry I didn't get your phone number. I'm sorry I didn't get your address. I'm sorry I didn't look deeply into your eyes I don't know the color--Or of the hair I think was black. I'm sorry I didn't get your surname, your more than nickname, your whatever would link me to you and the still knowing of you.
I'm sorry I didn't copy down what more I could do to be like you. For at twenty you amazed me and forever more meeting and passing a stranger on the street will be as close as I ever came to knowing you truly.
No matter how deeply you looked into my eyes and knew my first and last name and maybe even my address. How keenly you followed who I was and where I had been.
I'm sorry I wasn't better equipped to handle knowing and being around an artist such as yourself because now all that lines the insides of plates I scrape and knives I wash and buses I blend into is guilt, and that same worry as before that kept from knowing anything especially that hug that will never be cashed in on.