LoveGrams

No matter what I think, or say, or plan to do,
it's always wrong. There's no pleasing you.
I could document every time you disagree,
make me feel dumb and foolish relentlessly.
But it'd be easier to say everything,
because that would cover anything.
Every choice is another incoming fight.
Even when I'm lucky and I'm right,
somehow, for you, I did the right thing wrong.

It doesn't matter when you leave it up to me.
I'm an idiot who never gets you completely.
The truth is, you believe I'm never good enough.
Say what you want, but the evidence backs me up.

It's demeaning to hear you call me fragile.
Anything can shatter under enough pressure.
If it's not how wrong I love,
it's you claiming I don't communicate directly,
or that I fail to anticipate your needs correctly.

But tell me if I'm wrong.
Whose preferences flip like light switches?
How long I've known you doesn't matter
when, despite your claims, everything stays inconsistent.

It's full-on and never-ending,
the way you've got me spinning.
I don't know where I stand,
which way I'm facing,
or where I'm going.

The one thing I can't figure out
is whether it's deliberate.
I hope it isn't.
But you sneer when I fall apart.

You've made conscious, deliberate choices
that you knew would make me suffer.
Weeks or months later, you might apologize,
but only with kind words,
never with substance,
never with change.
Because it's something you've never stopped doing.

Heaven forbid I stand my ground,
or walk away when my fuse burns short.
You'll do everything you can
to keep me feeling smaller,
subservient.

Threats come first.
Follow-through comes next.
They're only preludes to violence.
A swing.
A slap.
Punches.
Two facial scars.  Two iPhones.   Two lacerations. 

Then, when it's time to explain the scars,
I lie for you.
Because I'm the one with the pending charge.

And despite all of this,
this is only a sampling.
I haven't given up on you
like nearly everyone else has.

I see your potential.
I know your worth.
I know what you mean to me,
and what you've done for me.

So when you get on that one-way track,
declaring today's the day you'll end it all,
selfishly, I feel it's the last thing you can still take from me,
after everything else I've willingly let you take.

I know that feeling.
I know that desire all too well.
And since you won't stop threatening it,
I'll plead my case,
but I won't stand in your way.

It all leads me to three questions.

Two are for you.

Why do you stay with someone who is never good enough in your eyes, someone you clearly don't trust?

Why do you stay with someone who has repeatedly explained how you make them feel, yet you continue the abuse anyway?

The last question is for me.

Why do I keep choosing a life where sorrow, misery, and suffering are the only things I can count on?

Wrong For Once

 

I'm sitting here by myself

It's too late to go out

I hate being alone

Because that's when everything that's wrong illuminates 

Now I'm forced to look at myself 

Overdue mirror work

And wonder what to do 

Now I've set myself free 

We werent meant to be, probably 

My friends all agree, but why

Can't I be wrong for once 

So I can act on this desire 

To run find you

And take you back

I thought I was lonely then

When youd stay out all night

Or after a fight

But at least then I knew that we'd always reunite

I made the choice to shut you out

You still try I deny

Another go at it

Why now am I so sure?

We werent meant to be, possibly 

My friends all agree, really

Can't I be wrong for once

So I can act on this desire

To run find you

Still wanting me

I'm still sitting up late alone 

I don't want to think of replacing you

It feels like cheating 

Why do you still hold my heart so tight

When I know in reality 

You never could hold it well

We werent meant to be, I claim

My friends all agree, don't they?

Can't I be wrong for once

So I can act on this desire

To run find out

If I was right 

Time to Come Undone

It's been a few days since we've spoken
So it's been a few days since we've fought
And now you're reaching out to me
Wanting to come and see me
I don't know if you should
I have to say I really miss you
Your absence leaves me feeling incomplete
But the peace and calm these past few days
Make recent choices worth this loneliness

Every second chance was just another battle
Loving you never was logical
But the comfort of this reprieve
Makes these changes obvious

It's time to come undone

If I'm supposed to be better off
Then why am I resisting the change
Every ignored call takes effort
To seem like I just don't care
I know that just isn't fair
But what's fair has never been the point
It doesn't matter now.
You had your chance,
To put the effort in to fix us
I told you then but if you forgot it...

I won't, can't, I refuse to do this anymore
Loving you wasn't logical
And neither was staying so long
This peace just validates that

It's time to come undone

If I were to grant your final wish
Hear you out, see you off, a last hug goodbye
Would just prolong our entanglement
It's sad our first and best healthy choice is walking away
So can't you just agree

We've got to come undone
(We have been in other ways)
To survive come undone
(Don't trip up now)
It's time (don't cry)
It's time (goodbye)
It's time to come undone

Nemesis

In the middle of a fight

I say things I know will hurt you

"I don't love you anymore!"

A lie you'll never unhear

Despite the fact we're textbook toxicity

I've honestly never stopped loving you...

Wanting you, needing you...

Even getting hurt by you

It's reached a point it physically hurts

The bruises are now hands-free 

I hate where we are

I'm afraid to love you still

Why did we let ourselves

Become our worst nemesis

Despite this being my point of view I'll say I'm

Not pretending I'm a saint

I'm ashamed the State made a case out of it

And hate that I learned that lesson hurting you

I'm better but I can't take that away

Yet you stay, and I stay...

Knowing full well we should stop

Holding tight to fading memories

Together just holding hands

I hate where we are

I'm afraid to love you still

Why did we let ourselves

Become our worst nemesis

Even now you're miles away

The state line between us 

Is closer than the real distance between

Are we avoiding the fact

We are exactly where we need to be

I forget who we were

I'm afraid to love you still

Why did we let ourselves

Become our worst nemesis

So where do we need to be?

Healing, mourning, 

With plenty of space between us

Are you my drug of choice?

Is that why I'm denying reality?   

STRIKE FIRST

I had suspicions... I'm a lovefool, but I'm weathered too
Every time I voiced my fears, I was gaslit effortlessly
Before I know it,
I'm foolishly devoted to a con... a player
Even through my adoring eyes I see y our words are... dubious

So how do I find myself caught unaware
With the conflicting lines, I got the truth half the time
You were here getting even for things
that were only your sins of thought

I've heard of a preemptive strike
But what you DO... IT'S something new
I'm left bewildered and confused
End the war before I'm belligerent
Strike First!  Obliterate, raze my heart with everyone

If I wasn't so... brutalized by it I'd be in... awe
The level of planning and imagining conspiracies
If I hadn't gone through it, I'd say
"Impossible!"
How can you let someone love...
you... then ruin them for all time

Of course I play the part you had set for me Armed with just suspicions, I acted out with vengeance
You'd confirm, deny...
Either way you made sure they WOULD take root in me 

I've heard of a preemptive strike
But what you DO, IT'S something new
I'm left bewildered and confused
End the war before I'm belligerent
Strike First! Obliterate, raze my heart with everyone

Even my closest, longest, confidants
Only saw the victim you made yourself
Now I'm here on my own
Brokenhearted... NO... emotionally eviscerated
No trust left or friends
Just unimaginable pain
when you enter my brain

I've heard of a preemptive strike
But what you DID... WHO RUINED YOU?
I'm left... ... numb ... ... dumb
End ... war? ... ... I'm belligerent
Strike First!  Strike ... First??? Pain.   A memory when I could feel.

decorate the cage

It’s hard to make this feeling musical.

No melody alive could carry this hollow.

Even if I stripped these words bare

and spoke them plain into the air,

some drummer somewhere

would still drag a beat from the bones.

But this is not silence.

Not the lack of rhythm.

This is the pain of once holding something warm

and watching it be withheld

for nothing.

No locked gate.

No warning sign.

No barricade of iron or law.

Just a road that starts in sunlight

with everything you prayed for in your hands,

then bends, slowly, smiling,

away from where you need to go.

You cannot turn around.

Time is a hallway with one door.

It closes behind you

each time you breathe.

And say you rebuilt it.

Brick by faithful brick.

Say you found the same hands,

the same room,

the same first light.

Would it live again

with all these wounds still open?

Or would it curdle on arrival,

go bitter on the tongue,

another beautiful thing

spoiled by being touched too late?

So why do we keep walking?

Why feed the machine that hollows us out?

Why return to altars

that never answer?

Maybe we mistake endurance for purpose.

Maybe we call repetition hope.

Maybe we love ourselves so little

we decorate the cage

and name it home.

Entangling.

I hated being so quick to lose my cool 

I regret not being able to breathe and let be

Its a tragedy love isn't really enough 

And I regret giving so much freely 

A shame things had to end this way

But I can't regret doing the right thing 

And walking away, I'll be okay. 

Building walls just to keep you away

I can't care if you're fine or not 

That compassion always snares the trap

Entangling me back with you 

Entangling a crazy rendezvous 

Entangling my heart be damned

Entangling where I was bound

I can't allow my self to reminisce now

I know I'll end up even worse off than I am now 

This parasisic relationship isn't fair 

You always come out of it better still

It's no wonder you fight so hard 

Only at the end to keep it going 

The emotional warfare takes pause

Now your crazy has another cause 

If I break away theres nothing

Stable enough for you to cling to

Entangling so we rely 

Entangling codependency lies 

Entangling all I have now

Entangling all your desires

I can't be who I am

If I stay with you you'll deplete me of what makes me 

And to leave you I have to let go of the last bits

Of empathy I have still to claim my name

If I stay I fade away

And that's why I keep finding I'm 

Entangling me back with you 

Entangling a crazy rendezvous 

Entangling my heart be damned

Entangling where I was bound

Entangling so we rely 

Entangling codependency lies 

Entangling all I have now

Entangling all your desires