Untitled Poem (living in contested reality)

Living in contested reality Every spare moment

Spent fighting for my sanity

 

Did I trust too much

Or not enough?

 

And why can’t I see it

Still?

 

Her words are like fingers

Picking apart the corners of my room

Every morning I spend hours

Mending the cracks

 

But they always come back

Because did I trust too much

Or not enough?

 

Was I loved

Or was I used?

And why can’t I see it

Still?

 

I mend the cracks with facts

Kept warm and ready

Putty that passes judgement

A very clearly broken promise

Mixed with my tears

And I smear and I smear

And it holds until I wonder again

 

Did I trust too much

Or not enough?

 

Enough to give her long-term clearance

To re-architect bits of my room

To poke holes

And ruin my walls

Months after we last spoke

 

Not enough..

Not enough to what?

I’ll never know

 

What if I’d given her myself

To squeeze between her hands

Roll into a ball and start again

Where would we be now?

 

“This will hurt, but then you’ll feel better”

So did I trust too much

Or not enough?

 

I don’t think any person deserves

To be trusted

The way that God is to be trusted

Not even the kindest person

I’ve ever met

Who hurt me more than anyone

I’ve ever met

 

I stretched my brain as far as it would go

Waited and waited

In the end she let me down

I’ve never trusted anyone so much

So irrationally

And yet I wake up every morning and wonder

Did I trust too much

Or not enough?

 

Maybe I want to believe

She loved me

Because if she did

She’ll come back eventually

And we’ll live happily

Ever

After

 

I play the petulant and stubborn child

To God saying

“Relax, everything is fine.

You just can’t see it yet.“

The dog thrashing around at the vet

The ignorant creature that doesn’t know

It’s been safe all along

Only I’m smart enough to wonder

Did I trust too much

Or not enough?

 

Maybe what I’m really asking is:

How can I prevent myself

From getting this hurt again?

 

Maybe I’m just obsessed with my injuries

And maybe sometimes people just let you down

And there’s nothing you can really do about it

 

Because what was I supposed to do,

Love her less?

Impossible

Impossible

 

I don’t even need to ask

I did let her press me between her hands

She pressed where it hurt the most

Asked but didn’t listen

Got stressed

Dropped me

And never came back

 

What’s love anyway

Without surrender?

 

I sit here and think to myself,

Sticky ball of flesh in the dirt as I am

“She didn’t trust me enough.”

 

George Orwell pointing at four sticks on the ground

Saying “five; five; five”

My lover saying, “five; five; five”

I split in two

In order to not be alone

Half of me holds onto four

And watches my mouth say, “five; five; five”

It feels like dying

Waiting for that silent half of me

To be proven wrong

But she never was

 

Out of everyone’s mouth comes five five five

While I’m tripping, bleeding because it’s four

My shirt gets caught on the edge that

Isn’t supposed to be there

That isn’t there

And I’m crying for a reason that

Isn’t supposed to exist

It doesn’t exist

And only when the others have

Abandoned me

And I am quietly

Opening my eyes

And listening to the only one I have left

Can it all make sense

Four, all along, four

 

I plaster it into my walls

And I scream it out loud

And I hold tight to my pillow and cry

I piece together weapons

With evidence

And I tighten up my corners

And my case

 

But her fingers peel back the edges

Until I see it in her big beautiful eyes

Five five five

All I can feel is my loneliness

When I wonder about five

The magical world of five

My fantasy

Where the problem was always me

And I can change

And then I’ll see it too

Five

Five

Glorious five

And the part of me holding onto four

Will disappear unnoticed

And then she won’t exist

And all that will exist

Is five

Five

Glorious five

Where I finally

Finally

Belong

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Centipede

I saw a centipede in the shower this morning. At first I thought it was a clump of hair, but it quivered and twitched. I thought about leaving it there and showing it up to my meetings with greasy hair. But then where would it go? Would it dry up and climb out to haunt me in my sleep? Would I be able to shower later, realistically? Sherwin's father came downstairs to take care of it for me. He smiled weakly, tissue in hand, as I showed him the way. Bent down and got it as I clasped my hands over my mouth, half-embarrassed and half-thrilled. The way that fear can be thrilling. He stepped back into the kitchen and examined it. “Old house,” he said, smiling. I smiled back and nodded my head in reassurance. “Yes it’s an old house. Thank you so much, it just freaks me out. I really appreciate it.” He was so kind that later I wondered if the centipede had showed up so that I could experience someone helping me. I’d only seen him downstairs once before to mop the floors. He’d turned the c...
Read more

I Dream of Hospice

Last night I dreamt about dying. This long drawn out process that never actually completed. Days of weeks of it. During an upswing, I ordered some Indian food from a counter. The owner–a man I’ve met a few times in New York City–said I had beautiful eyes and presented a selection of t-shirts, asking if I wanted to buy one. I told him, “no, I’m dying.” Then added, “do you have a smaller size?” He said they did not. I’d have drowned in the soft cotton of one of those shirts. It would have draped to my knees. Didn’t matter if it was red, or pink, or blue.. “No thank you, then,” I said. And took my food. I laid in bed on hospice, dying of old-age related somethings at 37. At one point I remember looking in the mirror under a dim light. I saw the wrinkles in my forehead and felt my stomach sink, but then I relaxed my worried face and they went away. Mostly, anyway.. but for faint lines that never used to be there. Faint lines that I could barely see under the dim light reflected in the clou...
Read more

Home

I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. An involuntary movement against the pain of the truth I cannot endure. Give me any excuse. My mind desperately searches. My arms shoot up from under the sheets, hands opening my laptop to write a few sentences that had occurred to me. Then just as quickly I shut it again and bring my arms back into the warmth against my body. My eyes dart around the room, looking for something I recognize. The horror sets in. A month ago, when I left I said, “Yes of course I’ll come home, but in a way, I can never come home.” It’s happened. My God, it’s happened. Tears well in my eyes, and I sit up fully now. Committed to the writing. I’ve gotten my nugget. My head droops, my jaw hangs, my shoulders slump. I haven’t come home. In my desperation for relief, I came home to the fantasy of coming home. And after a day or two, the dust is settling and I see that I have no home. I had a home, and I left it. You know, the story is complicated. I try not to paint myse...
Read more