"codependence" poems
i want you to imagine standing in the middle of an already collapsing house, and having everything suddenly flip upside down; or after years of homelessness, picture yourself being told you had somewhere you could stay for good, only to wake up just before being handed the keys. these are some of dangers of making places out of people.
1. don't ever turn a human being into a home unless you are prepared to be evicted without warning.
2. when you start to notice their arms taking the shape of a roof over your head, you have two choices: run, or wait for it to cave.
3. if they ask you to stay and burn with them, you have the right to say no.
4. it is not your responsibility to save anyone, and it is not your fault when you can't.
5. salvaging the photos from a house fire will only re-break your heart every time you pull them out to look at them.
6. when the basement floods, hold their hand.
7. if you are not a strong swimmer, remember that the difference between love and codependence is that one of then will drown you.
8. love will never drown you.
9. i knew this from the start but let you hold me beneath the waves in spite of it, just so you could stay afloat. i can't do that anymore.
10. i don't think i'll ever set foot on your hardwood floors again, but i'll pray that someone new moves in soon.
- m.f.
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 7:39 PM UTC
hello facebook friend,
girl who dated my first kiss
girl who strung him along
and later dated a good guy friend of mine
and he and i would laugh at your quirks
long after you two fell apart.
whenever i think of people who like having *** in rooms with mirrors on all the walls so they can watch themselves from every angle, i think of you.
whenever i think of wishy washy girls who string boys along because they're afraid of splitting up the codependence even though they don't have anything in common with him anymore, i think of you.
to you, on your wedding day.
may the odds be ever in your favor.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 2:48 AM UTC
I watch you struggle day to day
wanting more from your life
but not knowing where to start
From your frustration comes my triumph
No longer need to make your problems my own
and so I have grown
Mar 11, 2019
Mar 11, 2019 at 8:53 AM UTC
why hadn't i thought of this before?
why are children hidden in the floor?
why is our mother missing and
why is carbon four hundred parts per
human? historical doubts, unusual droughts, i thought
i'd never say it but **** canada. **** budweiser, ****
saint valentine and his pagan oppression, bless my blood
for being dark. there is consciousness in the pores of corals,
a strong mind in the **** at the polar regions of this table.
i am not an arctic hare, i am not a vector
for your raging codependence, four meters
into the thermosphere i am not vulnerable to
methane, early snowmelt, or severe wildfires
but you are.
Feb 14, 2014
Feb 14, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC
the love of a best friend
is one that cannot be
smothered
but when i watch you and her
i don't see best friends
i see one girl desperate to escape
a sick, twisted, dying relationship
and i see you
starving, crying out in the darkness
wanting to be the girl she longs for
while she's too busy chasing boys
to notice your sacrifices
you look in the mirror and you see wrong
you see lost
you see empty
where she sees nothing
when she asks why there's no one
to hold her close in the night
you look at me and i can see it in your eyes
i'm here, love. i'm here.
but just because i see it
and just because she sees it
doesn't mean she wants it
doesn't mean she needs it
so please, for me, for her, for them
wake up in the morning
eat the food in front of you
smile at your reflection
just because she doesn't appreciate you
doesn't mean no one else does
when i look at you and her
i don't see best friends
i see a love that's been
smothered
by codependence and
a lack of oxygen
i see loved
and i see
lost.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 10:39 AM UTC
The bed is cold, my love
Space drifting farther along with time
Your breath only bites my skin
Of where your lips have been.
But your touch burns red in streaks
Kiss pollutes me with this disease
Of codependence on absence.
Your voice is different now, a change in pace
As I run out in hopes to save the last remnant of me.
The masks are on, words are drawn
Into our backs.
Too close to what I love the most
He told me to stand on my own two feet
When he broke every bone.
Cornered and scared, I could only dare
To find my way out.
To find myself again.
It’s so cold out there,
You closed the doors.
Taste of what I’ll never have
To leave me wanting more.
All I needed was warmth:
A smile, a touch.
But you said
I loved you too much.
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 1:50 AM UTC
Today, I got sick of asking all these questions and
so I sat down on a grey cushioned hotel chair
among a group of bodies filled, like mugs to the top,
with honesty and sadness and loudness. Still, I was sick
of wondering the answers because all
that I seem to want anymore is oblivion. I think
therefore I am forced to suffer with the idea
of a self, floating continuously like the
fog on a stage as it drifts between the heads of
the audience members and into the ventilation.
Today, I shiver in the Autumn air, acting out
a withdrawal from
satisfying similes for codependence,
when I know that
salmon swimming up stream are bigger men
than I am.
And when the blades of grass quiver and freeze
in the cold blue morning dew,
I will think about poetry and sigh.
Even though my soul's silver blood runs and dances
into the arms of camaraderie, I fear, the way a
squirrel fears winter, as I shake the hands
connected to new faces that I am not opening doors
but climbing a ladder to a diving-board.
Today, I look out at the dark sky through
the antique glass and I dream of dancing;
I watch as a car passes, swishing on the wet streets,
and I return to my question-asking.
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 10:51 PM UTC
I'm glad she doesn't see. She doesn't see the messages, shared emotion between two people where she could have been one of them. She's safe there, outside the headspace of these people. She doesn't feel the absence of an afterthought; there should have been. But she probably wouldn't take exception.
She's been here and there, providing in space oscillating between awareness and obscurity, never coaxing such an intention to express gratitude. She has been given little of what is hers, and so remains steadfastly defunct of knowing any misdirection. Painfully, or perhaps peacefully, symbolic love isn't hers.
And so it slips and slides between others less modest, ultimately touching via codependence and gravitation, an exertion of a weak nuclear force in relative vacancy.
Hopefully, though she can't see, she isn't wanting. Hopefully, she doesn't know that while she has given her love and life, others derive the result.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
You've been holding onto rocks
to keep yourself
from being swept away
your whole life.
None of them
were strong enough
Until one day
You thought you found
the one
It was big
and it was sturdy
and you clung to it
But it never
clung back.
Now you've been
clinging to this rock
for a very long time
and the scenery has grown old
You've seen all
the seasons
So
many
times.
But you are not drowning
for the most part
And will take this peace
over the treacherous currant
and all its dangers
any day.
Lately you've noticed
this rock does not seem
big enough
anymore.
Have the rough waters
worn it down
without you noticing
or
have you
impossibly
grown bigger?
You cling tighter.
The rock
does not cling back.
A particularly rough storm approaches
the water is
stinging
and bites.
Suddenly
Your rock has crumbled
out
from underneath you.
You cannot
grasp all the bits and pieces
and put them back
together again.
This throws you down
the crazy stream
You bash into boulders.
They leave
Deep cuts
and
Dark bruises
You somehow make it through
rapids
But try to grasp at small stones
Hope one
could be a steady friend
But nothing sticks.
You hold the small remnants
of your lost steadiness
so tight
your skin is bleeding
Even cling to grass and twigs
won't hold
you cannot control
your pathway
anymore.
You fear
a waterfall.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 1:56 AM UTC
I swear I'm not in love with him.
The boy with the super glued heart and lingering smile.
With the feathered name and soft kisses.
I swear I swear I swear I'm not.
But I live, for what he gives...
I live for the moments that bring me back,
the moments that take
the broken springs
from under my back.
And these moments are produced by his presence.
I live for personalities like his,
lacking adjective for the sole fact that he is
the only one that emanates such a state and way of life.
He is the only one to own this armor that is indistinguishable from his skin.
I live for independence and codependence.
Both of which he blesses me with.
He doesn't see the need for harshness and punishment due to flaws. My flaws.
I live for nature.
The same nature as his flesh that melts into the background of the trees, as the shift between his daytime talk and his nighttime swim through my veins.
I live for the yearning of something in the distance.
And he-- he is the most beautiful horizon I've ever reached out to touch. I live for things like him.
And there is nothing like him.
So here's the question. Do I live for nothing...or do I live for him?
I live for him.
But I swear I'm not in love with this boy... (okay, so maybe I am).
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 1:15 AM UTC
too many people look like you
in dimly lit rooms
which sends me searching for the light-switch
well
only in the times
when i'm not searching for traces of you
something i can cling on to
until
the need passes
the ache fades
something better comes along
i must say
this isn't an ode to my codependence
i am great at being alone
but
after being wrapped around your finger
for so long
i've begun to miss the warmth
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 10:27 PM UTC
I wish that your smell didn't still
Linger around me like a phantom
I wish that your kiss wasn't still imprinted on my cheek
Or tickling my neck like a softly woven scarf
I wish I didn't still feel your awkwardness
Clinging to me when I see friends,
That I didn't run home to the absence of your embrace every time I get scared, which is a lot since you left
Your socks sneak into my drawers
And snuggle into mine,
Folding into little laundered intimacies
It's been over year
Can you believe that?
I want to run into your arms and tell you that but I haven't touched you in longer than I care to remember.
God I miss you
I miss having a home
In your smile,
Taking comfort in the warmth of your body under my sheets.
I taste you every morning in my coffee
In my warm pumpkin salad lunches,
At dinner with wine
At all hours on my lips.
You don't know it, but you are with me as I steal expensive groceries,
You feel the thrill as I escape the checkout again.
You stole my heart, it's a clumsy metaphor but you did it,
On that first date you nicked a cheap telescope and through its blur we watched the world lose its focus,
Everything but us
Lost focus
And I still can't see it,
I can't see the world around me
Anymore
And now the memories of you are blurred too,
Either by time or by the tears
I can't tell.
When I was upset you would refuse to leave me alone,
As if you were afraid I'd drown in my own tears if you weren't there to hold me up
Now I am alone and I don't even know
Whether or not I did drown
Or if I will soon
You aren't holding me up anymore,
Instead you are pulling at me desperately, painfully,
Possessively
Heartbreak is jealous of every moment not consumed with it
I am still caught in the web of our codependence, spun and dried out,
No longer burning with poison
But consumed instead with empty death
Have you ever seen the shell of an insect left behind by a spider?
I have
You already know that I felt a strange solidarity with it.
Please call me back,
Even if its just to say goodbye.
I need new words to echo round my empty shell,
Words that aren't "I'd be nothing without you"
"I need you"
"I will always love you"
Please, just give me the sound of your voice saying "its over"
Or "you are beautiful,
The world is gloriously open and new when you are alone"
And you would open your arms and uncurl your fingers,
Not to embrace me,
But to finally let me go.
I am ready-please set me free.
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 10:39 PM UTC
Falling backwards
Through the back woods
An atlas
Doesn't matter
When you're lost and shattered
Fight my demons for another day
I didn't want to be happy anyway
Alcoholism and thirst to slay
Is there anything I can do to make you stay?
I'm my own ******* nemesis
Trying to find relevance
Nothing makes any sense
Life of codependence
Nothing but nightmares in a dream
Nothing what it seem
Staring at a screen
What is a human bein'?
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 9:53 AM UTC
I think
That was when
I started
To fall
In love
With you
Two primates
Under a misunderstanding
Two primates
Under a cosmic codependence
We understand trees
We want to understand
Each other
That was a night
Of hope
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 4:07 PM UTC
the key to life
is living long enough
that you no longer live with reality
but reality lives with you
in a perfectly melded
twisted version of codependence
in which the answers to your questions
don’t even matter that much anymore
because the questions are just
so much fun
to discuss
Dec 18, 2017
Dec 18, 2017 at 3:23 AM UTC
You love abusing me
You love telling me what to do
Your servant
You love when I do the dishes
"Because I know how to do them right"
Because you hit me when I did them "wrong"
and you hit me when the other kids wouldn't wash them at all
You love it when someone takes care of you
You conditioned me to be the perfect caregiver
For you
You love codependence
You love yourself
You don't realize that you don't love me
You grieve for me
You grieve, because it's not easy
To live without
A fulltime caregiver
A fulltime maid
A fulltime cook
It took me a long time to learn what love is
I love my Husband
I love his smile, his brilliant eyes, and that he hugs me
when I'm feeling down
I love listening to him get excited
about weird and pointless things
I love seeing him happy, with or without me
I love that we are on the same team
Team "Us", both of us
You can tell me "I Love You" everyday
for the rest of your life
but you are only lying to yourself
Aug 10, 2021
Aug 10, 2021 at 2:57 PM UTC