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

Mirror Work

Every day finds its way back here

not loudly

not even deliberately

just… without resistance

the same words

worn thinner each time they’re spoken

until they barely resemble intention

“we’ll be better”

said like a habit

not a promise

and I hear it

while it’s happening

that’s the difference now

nothing is hidden anymore

not the pattern

not the pause before it repeats

not the moment where I could stop it

and don’t

there’s a quiet after

not relief

just the absence of movement

plans get mentioned there

softly

as if saying them gently will make them real

they settle like dust

untouched

exactly where they land

I’ve kept pieces of proof

that I meant something else

fragments of plans

versions of myself

that almost existed

they don’t feel like memories

they feel like evidence

of something that never fully happened

you say my feelings need reigning

that I stretch things too far

that what I hold onto

costs more than it gives

maybe that’s true

but the mirror doesn’t argue

it doesn’t soften anything either

it just shows me

that I see all of this

and stay anyway

there’s a point

I can feel it now

not ahead of me

but close

where this either breaks

or it ends

and I don’t know

if those are different things

it’s quiet here

too quiet to call it peace

more like everything

holding its breath

including me

Unnecessarily

Unnecessarily

I fought to keep us from ending,

certain the collapse

would shatter

what was left of me.

Instead—

silence.

A peace I haven’t known

since knowing you.

Was our love real,

or just a byproduct

of your mimicry

in the light?

Lately you can find me

curled in confusion,

reeling from what just happened

or what might.

I never thought I’d come so close to death.

I tasted it. Twice.

Like the base of your neck—

scentless.

Like the part in your eyes

that never sparked.

If there was love in you—

for me, for anyone—

it lived only as potential.

I sit awake, lights blazing.

I am afraid of myself.

Gaslit enough

to doubt even my own name.

If you told me I was Mitchell Rodney,

would I believe you?

I wanted warning signs.

I saw them.

I didn’t understand them.

A man at midlife

without relations of any kind—

should have been enough.

I’ve learned my life

was at least half a lie.

The pictures only partially true.

And I am not innocent.

I am, too—

an incomplete collection

of painful venom,

unnecessarily.

An Incomplete Collection

I've been fighting to keep this relationship coming to a hault

Fearing an impending chaos too much for my already fracturing psyche 

But all I'm finding at our end is unexpected calming silence

Peace I haven't known since knowing you

Was our love ever real

Or are my feelings just a byproduct 

Of you sociopathic mimicry

To function out in the light

There is one way lately you can always find me

Curled up in confusion,

Reeling either things just happened 

Or anticipating what is next

I never thought I'd ever come so close to death

I could taste it twice

It's like the scent at the base of your neck 

Absent of anything just like the part in your eyes that should sparkle

If there was ever love in your heart for me

Or anyone like you claim

It's really amazing your potential

The amazing things, beyond your wants and needs

Like love or whatever you could dream

But sadly, like my recent ramblings 

Just an incomplete collection of painful venom unnecessarily 

I sit up these nights too late

Every light on, all very bright

I'm scared for myself

I've been gaslight by each significant love in my life expottentially 

I can't trust any word to be true and genuine 

Even a truth like my name so unquestionable

Would I believe you or spiral in uncertainty if you told me my name was Mitchell Rodney

I always wished people came with warning signs

Turns out I just couldn't process what I was looking at

Any man surviving to the midlife point without any significant relations

That's everything I needed to know to stay away 

I obnoxiously promote that through my time with you,

I've learned the life I lived was a least half a lie

My pretty pictures I sold only partially accurate. 

At least I learned and accept I'm just like you 

An Incomplete Collection of Painful Venom Unnecessarily 

Love Knows No

 

I can’t deny I’ll never stop loving you 

It’s impossible it’s from my soul

But how can I allow myself to be hurt 

By your cold and reckless affection 

It’s a love that knows no return

No mutual exchange (lonely)

No enriching touch (empty)

No middle ground (jaded)

No reason to try (so why)

I keep asking to be proven wrong 

I keep waiting to see a change 

You say why should you when I’m not

But how can I when I’ve nothing left

I keep still, not running away 

I keep getting the same result, insane 

Maybe I just don’t understand 

How love is suppose to feel

And think I’ve given more than I have 

Maybe I’m foolish, I probably am

I don’t want to talk and hear the same thing 

That its all my fault over and over again

How things I didn’t do made you feel some way

That gives you the right to whatever you like 

I just want you intricately intimately 

You rather be anywhere but just with me

When we’re alone you’re looking away

For an escape for a distraction from me

How much distance from your soul

Can this love survive as it is 

Cutting it off from what it needs 

Does it grow back or wither lonely 

Is that what you want to see

Is that what I need to know 

If a love knows no

End or hope 

I Envy You

 Being with you to you I’m an option

When you fill my every need and more 

My broken heart just like your missed mention

Insignificant 

I think I’ve lost my mind but I know I’m in love 

So what if i sacrifice to hold your hand

I know it’s obvious I’m wearing thin but your loves everything so

I can’t love you even though I do 

Even if I push you away you’re always within reach

If I abandon my self, give up my shine for you the irony is that i still envy you 

I can’t relax even if I’m shattered 

You can always rest assured that an “I love you” 

Even if insincere will keep me holding on

Does that bother you at all

I guess I’ve lost my mind but it’s my kind of love

It doesn’t matter you say I’ll suffer and call it love I’m so dumb. 

Before I’m snuffed out if I never heal I’m sorry but 

I can’t love you even though I do 

Even if I push you away you’re always within reach

If I abandon my self, give up my shine for you the irony is that i still envy you 

The months of tears and my broken heart keep me from knowing peace 

But I’m still trying 

So if you do leave please make it easy

I envy you…

I Envy You	INVU
Being with you to you I’m an option	Falling in love To you, I’m just an option
When you fill my every need and more	You and I were different from the beginning
My broken heart just like your missed mention	Broken heart Your missed mention
Insignificant	I’m used to it yeah
I think I’ve lost my mind but I know I’m in love	I think I lost my mind But it's my kind of love
So what if i sacrifice to hold your hand	Without leaving anything Pour everything out and flop
I know it’s obvious I’m wearing thin but your loves everything so	Suddenly at one point I see myself exhausted Even though I'm trying my best
I can’t love you even though I do	So I can’t love you Even though I do
Even if I push you away you’re always within reach	Even if I push you awayI can’t beat you
If I abandon my self, give up my shine for you the irony is that i still envy you	Even I abandon myself and lose myself more The irony is that you shine more   So I N V U
I can’t relax even if I’m shattered	Don’t leanDon’t even expect it?
You can always rest assured that an “I love you”	Even if I repeat it over and over
Even if insincere will keep me holding on	With your one touch Watching me collapse
Does that bother you at all	How do you feel about
I guess I’ve lost my mind but it’s my kind of love	I guess I lost my mind Yeah It’s my kind of love
It doesn’t matter you say I’ll suffer and call it love I’m so dumb.	Like it’s always the first time It hurts me again since I'm so clumsy
Before I’m snuffed out if I never heal I’m sorry but	Before I get dullBefore I even get healed I mess up my mind
I can’t love you even though I do	So I can’t love you Even though I do
Even if I push you away you’re always within reach	Even if I push you awayI can’t beat you
If I abandon my self, give up my shine for you the irony is that i still envy you	Even I abandon myself and lose myself more The irony is that you shine more   So I N V U
The months of tears and my broken heart keep me from knowing peace	The cooled warmthThe broken heart Keeps scratching me
But I’m still trying	It hurts but I can’t stop it
So if you do leave please make it easy	So when you leave Please make it easy
I envy you…	iNVU