Sep 2013
Oh, I am raw.
You knew.
You knew this whole time.
And you made your bid for love and freedom oncemore,
Like you'd never been hurt in your life,
Like it couldn't turn out wrong.
You knew, you knew.
Every single time, the hope wins over the sense,
And it's like you don't even try.
Who are you to march away and leave me here,
Heart?
Who are you to skip away blithely into the night every time I beg you to stay?
It's like you don't even belong in my breast,
The way you leap forth and hitch a ride
With people you see pass near, who shine like stars.
You follow them like gravity,
And every time, I scream inside my head,
Locked in,
"WAIT! Don't go, don't leave me here to feel your space!"
But you ignore me each time,
And briefly I am sure you are right,
Briefly, every single time,
I believe that you are the one I should be following,
Dragged behind you,
And not the other way around.
And then it comes,
It comes and I trip myself just so I will have chosen to go down,
And I am here,
Left
Wretched on my knees
And you never have to take the fall.
You never have to deal with it.
You're only in control when the sun is shining.
When the storms hit and knock the breath out of me like thunder rolling,
You plead you never chose a thing.
You traitor,
I would claw you from my chest!
But you already did that,
And I have no way to take revenge on you for your treachery-
You are me.
Your pain is mine.
(your joy is mine as well)
And so you get to,
Every time,
Abandon me and make me thank you for it,
And I am so sick of it I could scream.
You don't have consequences, Love.
You ARE a consequence.
What ever gave you the right
To turn my life upside down?
To leave me so unable to do anything but watch as I am dismantled by a force I never asked to feel?
I'd be happy, content, perfect,
(no, unfulfilled, empty, lost...)
To just give you up and cut the strings
That she
(whoever she may be, for I never get to choose, do I?)
Saws at with a bow, poison-tipped like a Shakespearean sword,
Plays, like violins singing melodrama.
I'd sever you from me in an instant and let you go
Play your games elsewhere,
Heart.
I swear I'd do it and dance in the streets,
(I'd have nothing, not know what to do)
If only it was possible.
(I am not damaged enough to give up)
I don't believe in love,
(Oh but I do, and sometimes I don't want to)
But I am married to my work, to you:
My job is not to be paid,
It is not to be happy,
(you are my chance for "happy")
It is simply and exhaustingly to survive your choices.
I don't get my life!
I get you.
I get kicked when I'm down, I get holes and hollows in places
I didn't know a heart filled,
Like fingertips and rib bones and lungs,
And that awful twisted spot above my stomach
That echoes cavernously with loneliness in the middle of the night
And sometimes in the lunchroom or on the subway.
(I get to think maybe that sadness will cease)
I get haunted dreams and impulses I can't control,
(sweet relief from a life of restraint)
I get your puppet strings
Jerking me to my knees
Knocking the pride out of me like breath.
(It speaks, but underneath I worship you)
I get your fingers inside my head, on the ridges of my brain,
Digging in like a migraine headache,
Gouging a place for someone I don't even know.
(Replacing the sorrow with joy so intense that I fear it.)
Who put you in me?
You don't fit here.
(you are the only thing that fits here)
You don't belong here.
(I am so afraid you don't.)
Like a parasite, you feed on me
(I need something to take this ache.)
And I am slowly dying of it, Heart.
(cure for my loneliness, arsenic for my mind)
I've tried everything I know,
I even tried to make you die inside me-
(I didn't know what else to do, I'm sorry)
Husk of a soul skittering along the undersides of my graffitied ribs,
But no, no you rose again,
Stronger,
And I... I wept in fear, Heart,
I really did.
(I made the hardest choice and you unmade it.)
Nobody knows that-
That I wanted you to go,
That I wanted you to stop, actually.
Nobody knows that I'd have happily never felt a thing for the rest of my life,
(only in fear, Heart, only in fatigue)
When they saw me fight so hard to become myself again.
(I couldn't beat the part of me that needs you)
But I knew,
I knew
Because the day you stretched and yawned after leaving me for months to rot around your frozen form,
I felt in me a terror I will never be able to explain,
Never be able to understand fully.
(Self preservation was never one of my talents, or yours)
This gibbering, skin crawling agony of panic,
That here you were again to bend me and break me,
That I was mortal, carrying a love that couldn't ever be killed.
It was the moment of clarity,
(of awe, as well, and terrifying vitality)
Before I decided I had to force myself to work with you,
Slap a smile on and go look for my next defeat,
(oh, maybe this time I could keep the love)
During which I saw my life unfold before me like a vast map,
Your destruction burning it to ashes in all the places I'd love to live,
Place by place by place,
Charred path to death over the lengths of decades,
No control, no say, just heat- and me, following along behind
Like a lost puppy
Trying to rebuild something substantial enough to make my home in.
I saw before me a life without rest,
Of this, the constant struggle to find and keep a wholeness I apparently don't deserve,
(I can't stop trying to deserve it)
To catch you and stuff you back where you belong and force you to lie still,
When I know you will only consume me with flames anyway.
I hate you, I really do.
(fear, not hate)
I hate you because I want to live.
(I am afraid you will destroy me)
I hate you because I want to die.
(I am afraid I will destroy you)
I hate you because if it were not for you, I would never suffer,
And I would have nothing to live for-
For I know nothing but the constancy of you,
Pushing me down, forcing me to my knees
And me struggling to rise and find a way to bear your burdens.
(GIFTS)
I hate you because I will never, ever be rid of you,
And I hate you because nobody should want to be rid of
What makes them live.
I hate you because underneath I still believe, somehow, that every single second's worth it,
Because that naive faith in you just won't die-
How can I stand that?
(How can my pride abide a hate for something vital, and a love for something toxic?)
And you've betrayed me every time, Heart,
And I don't forgive you.
(I already forgave you long ago)
And what if you've gone and done it again?
(Let me say I hate you so that I can have some control)
And how am I supposed to know that
For all these years to come?
*(Please don't go cold again, my Heart.)
You knew.
You knew this whole time.
And you made your bid for love and freedom oncemore,
Like you'd never been hurt in your life,
Like it couldn't turn out wrong.
You knew, you knew.
Every single time, the hope wins over the sense,
And it's like you don't even try.
Who are you to march away and leave me here,
Heart?
Who are you to skip away blithely into the night every time I beg you to stay?
It's like you don't even belong in my breast,
The way you leap forth and hitch a ride
With people you see pass near, who shine like stars.
You follow them like gravity,
And every time, I scream inside my head,
Locked in,
"WAIT! Don't go, don't leave me here to feel your space!"
But you ignore me each time,
And briefly I am sure you are right,
Briefly, every single time,
I believe that you are the one I should be following,
Dragged behind you,
And not the other way around.
And then it comes,
It comes and I trip myself just so I will have chosen to go down,
And I am here,
Left
Wretched on my knees
And you never have to take the fall.
You never have to deal with it.
You're only in control when the sun is shining.
When the storms hit and knock the breath out of me like thunder rolling,
You plead you never chose a thing.
You traitor,
I would claw you from my chest!
But you already did that,
And I have no way to take revenge on you for your treachery-
You are me.
Your pain is mine.
(your joy is mine as well)
And so you get to,
Every time,
Abandon me and make me thank you for it,
And I am so sick of it I could scream.
You don't have consequences, Love.
You ARE a consequence.
What ever gave you the right
To turn my life upside down?
To leave me so unable to do anything but watch as I am dismantled by a force I never asked to feel?
I'd be happy, content, perfect,
(no, unfulfilled, empty, lost...)
To just give you up and cut the strings
That she
(whoever she may be, for I never get to choose, do I?)
Saws at with a bow, poison-tipped like a Shakespearean sword,
Plays, like violins singing melodrama.
I'd sever you from me in an instant and let you go
Play your games elsewhere,
Heart.
I swear I'd do it and dance in the streets,
(I'd have nothing, not know what to do)
If only it was possible.
(I am not damaged enough to give up)
I don't believe in love,
(Oh but I do, and sometimes I don't want to)
But I am married to my work, to you:
My job is not to be paid,
It is not to be happy,
(you are my chance for "happy")
It is simply and exhaustingly to survive your choices.
I don't get my life!
I get you.
I get kicked when I'm down, I get holes and hollows in places
I didn't know a heart filled,
Like fingertips and rib bones and lungs,
And that awful twisted spot above my stomach
That echoes cavernously with loneliness in the middle of the night
And sometimes in the lunchroom or on the subway.
(I get to think maybe that sadness will cease)
I get haunted dreams and impulses I can't control,
(sweet relief from a life of restraint)
I get your puppet strings
Jerking me to my knees
Knocking the pride out of me like breath.
(It speaks, but underneath I worship you)
I get your fingers inside my head, on the ridges of my brain,
Digging in like a migraine headache,
Gouging a place for someone I don't even know.
(Replacing the sorrow with joy so intense that I fear it.)
Who put you in me?
You don't fit here.
(you are the only thing that fits here)
You don't belong here.
(I am so afraid you don't.)
Like a parasite, you feed on me
(I need something to take this ache.)
And I am slowly dying of it, Heart.
(cure for my loneliness, arsenic for my mind)
I've tried everything I know,
I even tried to make you die inside me-
(I didn't know what else to do, I'm sorry)
Husk of a soul skittering along the undersides of my graffitied ribs,
But no, no you rose again,
Stronger,
And I... I wept in fear, Heart,
I really did.
(I made the hardest choice and you unmade it.)
Nobody knows that-
That I wanted you to go,
That I wanted you to stop, actually.
Nobody knows that I'd have happily never felt a thing for the rest of my life,
(only in fear, Heart, only in fatigue)
When they saw me fight so hard to become myself again.
(I couldn't beat the part of me that needs you)
But I knew,
I knew
Because the day you stretched and yawned after leaving me for months to rot around your frozen form,
I felt in me a terror I will never be able to explain,
Never be able to understand fully.
(Self preservation was never one of my talents, or yours)
This gibbering, skin crawling agony of panic,
That here you were again to bend me and break me,
That I was mortal, carrying a love that couldn't ever be killed.
It was the moment of clarity,
(of awe, as well, and terrifying vitality)
Before I decided I had to force myself to work with you,
Slap a smile on and go look for my next defeat,
(oh, maybe this time I could keep the love)
During which I saw my life unfold before me like a vast map,
Your destruction burning it to ashes in all the places I'd love to live,
Place by place by place,
Charred path to death over the lengths of decades,
No control, no say, just heat- and me, following along behind
Like a lost puppy
Trying to rebuild something substantial enough to make my home in.
I saw before me a life without rest,
Of this, the constant struggle to find and keep a wholeness I apparently don't deserve,
(I can't stop trying to deserve it)
To catch you and stuff you back where you belong and force you to lie still,
When I know you will only consume me with flames anyway.
I hate you, I really do.
(fear, not hate)
I hate you because I want to live.
(I am afraid you will destroy me)
I hate you because I want to die.
(I am afraid I will destroy you)
I hate you because if it were not for you, I would never suffer,
And I would have nothing to live for-
For I know nothing but the constancy of you,
Pushing me down, forcing me to my knees
And me struggling to rise and find a way to bear your burdens.
(GIFTS)
I hate you because I will never, ever be rid of you,
And I hate you because nobody should want to be rid of
What makes them live.
I hate you because underneath I still believe, somehow, that every single second's worth it,
Because that naive faith in you just won't die-
How can I stand that?
(How can my pride abide a hate for something vital, and a love for something toxic?)
And you've betrayed me every time, Heart,
And I don't forgive you.
(I already forgave you long ago)
And what if you've gone and done it again?
(Let me say I hate you so that I can have some control)
And how am I supposed to know that
For all these years to come?
*(Please don't go cold again, my Heart.)
