Fighting down the shadows of old with glaring and fuming
Holding myself together with a thin word of hope
And the consuming need to breathe that lurks at my resisting edges
Firing darts to my core so I will be no more, I never listen.
Blind to the facts, my memory fuzzy
With persuasion and other white perversions
Placed in my ears for my own good,
Until there is no truth to discern anymore.
Who's right or wrong? What's good or bad?
Who started it, in this never-ending tale.
There is no memory left that isn't tainted or murky by the anger
And resentment.
The disappointments immense cannot bear to be counted.
There is no reasonable, no sensible explanation
Why I'm so distanced from you, why I need the safety.
You suffer righteously in disbelief, at my reticence,
At my ability to twist words to play your games,
The radical mood-leaps that define our conversations -
With the mouse, who is monster.
The way I need a thousand faces to face you
What made me so duplicitous, so shattered,
So unable to be the truth with you?
When it's what I live to find, what I live to breathe.
Why can't I love you in the normal ways?
When I'd instinctively, recklessly die for love.
The casualties mount - my dear ones nudged to periphery,
Or the stand-between, the meddling by thoughtful interference -
Like I am Child, and have no say, no mind to speak.
I do your bidding and all is well,
Following rules, makes harmony.
I ask for help - I owe you.
I am this way, duplicitous -
You cannot understand my differences.

August 2003