Lonely Believer

It took me a week to write this. I notice now I almost have too much to say and it takes me longer to sort through it and make my thoughts coherent. I started with three pages and ended up with the one below.

LONELY BELIEVER

I don’t know why I ask so many questions
when you never answer any of them.
Once again I find myself giving it to you,
giving up myself for you.

You wrote through the pain before.
On your own. So you’ve told me
you forgave me. I never did.
Do you know what a decade of being
the lonely believer can do to a person?
If I’m the only one who believes is it still the truth?
I need the time to get where you are,
to get over the cocky confidence confronting me.
I’m on my way to knowing I’m a fool to have ever believed
things would have some black & white movie ending.
So I’m doing this, working through my emotions
and sharing every word so you can be happy,
so you can have what I want.
But if you’re not satisfied then what am I doing this for?
Is my needing what you need?
You’re a part of me I’ll never have.
Maybe I just want it back.
I’ll go back to myself, the self you ask for
if you’re so sure that’s what you want.
I was foolish to think you’d never leave that adolescence.
Somehow you were expecting the same of me.
I’ve become my own worst enemy by letting myself go on.
I eat alone. I drink alone. I write alone.
Once again you get what you want from me.
And you wonder why I walked away,
and now why I’m still always chasing.
What is it you want to hear me say?
Because I keep saying the wrong thing.
I should probably be ashamed of all my trying.
You see right through me, don’t you?

You want to be better than I was,
endure more pain than I would.
Are you letting me help you thinking it will help me?
Before you understood me without a word.
Now I’m saying everything and you still can’t understand.
I think you’ve kept a piece of me all these years.
And you have, I see my copies of Into The Wild
and the letters of Sylvia Plath on your bookcase,
tangible things left behind as visual reminders.
They must have left you unfulfilled.

I’m drawn in by the gravity of you,
asking for something I thought you already gave me,
something I should have already offered you.
Maybe I was better off not knowing.
But I have to go on believing something.
I just haven’t figured out what.