Blade

Over Memorial Day weekend, there was....an incident. I was hanging out with her and her boyfriend when his parents unexpectedly dropped by. His parents were lovely people, I think I got along better with them than she did, but the whole experience was my breaking point. I was done being silent and just watching her be his. It was killing me slowly on the inside, and I found myself drinking too much, a problem I've already overcome once. So I opened my mouth. Some might call what I did courageous, I call it stupid. It was like I finally said all the things neither one of us could say, and forcing the issue just ended up hurting us both. She has what I want from her with him, I have what she wants from me with other friends. I don't know what I expected, probably a Hollywood ending. Maybe not all of my idealism is gone. But it just didn't go like I planned. I guess while I spent the last years believing that we were always destined to be together, she spent them getting over what might have happened and made herself believe that we'd never work out. The one time I need her to believe and she tells me she can't. I was angry. At her. At myself. And so this poem.


BLADE

You are my sister goddess Erato
giving me the ability to write.
And I know you love it, all that control.
But I love you more and
I’m willing to sacrifice my writing
for it if I have to.
You’d rather sacrifice my happiness
for what you view as talent
because it glorifies you.
Is that why?
I don’t think it’s worth it.
When will you give me the answers
to all my questions?
When will you tell me what it is
you can’t say?

You talk of my negative space
but never address it and always leave it
unanswered.
Should I not have exposed the rough edges
before I smoothed them out?
I get a response that separates you
from the page and
you become a reader and critic
rather than the subject.
And then I wonder what it’s all for,
if there is an equal and opposite reaction
to my initial action.
I can’t be this wrong.
Your intoxication tells me
the very things you are trying to deny.

You are the who, why, what, where
of everything I put down.
Are you really telling me
you didn’t see the boiling volcano
rising from the deafening static?
I think you’d rather just read my tragic words
than see my pathetic tears.
I start on the offensive
and end up the apologetic aggressor,
always.
I have no more to defend.
I’ve done my time,
spent it evolving from my fear.
I’d rather gamble on the surprise,
go all in for the risk.
There’s no living in safety,
no excitement in comfort zones.
I want to walk the line
between what I can’t do
and what scares me the most.

My poems are
my private letters to your eyes
because you won’t let me
talk to your soul.
I never really look at you,
at least not the way I want.
I write what you won’t let me say
because you say
we don’t work like that.
How can you say
what I do when you have no idea?
There’s an excuse for everything.
Did you ever once think that maybe
I’ve forgotten the old past
because I want to make a new one?
What’s wrong with starting a new adventure
or getting on a different ride?
What more could I want?
I want to spend every night
feeling the warmth of your body
in my heart.
I want to hold you in
the bitter silence of my arms
and make you feel at home.
I’m done fooling around
now that I know what I want.
I’d rather lose it all,
what little it is compared to what I see,
than never show you
the best I could be
and all I’m capable of.

I’ve made some bold choices.
My conservative struggle is no secret.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if
today my existence was denied
even though I know
deep in her soul
I showed her
what she truly deserves.
It changed her, I know it did,
because it changed me.
I don’t want to just be a story.
I want to be your story.

My writing isn’t what’s keeping you
from me, is it?
You don’t think you’d have to give up
one beauty for another, do you?
Are the words what you would want
if you did?
You don’t even know how many times
I tried to start writing to you and couldn’t
because I forgot what this feels like.
I feel ridiculous for being so romantic,
silly for being so sloppy.
If I could steal one from God,
why can’t my desire steal another?
This selfish ego makes me vulnerable
and this writing becomes my prayer.
When you smile at me
I see an angel
and I look at the stone-faced
metal surrounding me
as I fall asleep
forever into this daydream.