Poem: Your candlelight (my escape); Monday, September 27, 2021
There’s no “do or die” with you
Because I’m – I’m not with you
That’s the “want to die” part
Sleeping until morning with you sounds okay and fun
But I want to stay up arguing until the morning sun
Blinds you if only to bliss you
Close my eyes and my ears when I kiss you
Tell you to great lengths of how much I miss you
But is this you?
Am I seeing the real you?
Do I know you?
I understand the role you’re playing, I see the person you’re trying to be
The goals you have written on your whiteboard that hangs at a slanted angle because you like it that way
The monster inside you that I told you [no matter who it is] I would accept anyway
Wouldn’t have you any other way
Mine,
Stay
Then August came
Like a wind of wrath, it spit fire
You turned a year older and converted your carcass into a liar
Missed phone calls
Train tickets
(You tore my insides apart)
You made me so scared that you would depart
I stopped writing poems, stopped working on my art
Unexplained visits
(Who were they?)
Missing car keys
(Who was driving?)
You kept saying I was beautiful, but then you kept lying
Was it impossible for you to see how hard I was trying?
When you punched the dashboard
When you punched the backdoors
When you punched the bathroom floor
And I took pictures of your chaos
Because I was so in love
I was so in love
I was so in love
I was so in love
My sparkling white haze, my lilac dove
I knew only in God’s world could this be true love
Maddening, maddening
Crystals, crystals
Rocks and marbles of all different colors
Aquamarine and thirty shades of green
I’ll be there for you, both in terror and the serene
You’re too perfect to never be seen
You were my favourite crazy, convoluted gemstone and I chewed you raw until I broke my teeth on your intricately segmented bones
Crystallized and pure, the gem of residue
The glue that connects my creepy insides to you
The magnetic essence of hot beach days in Malibu
You were so soft, what happened?
Did I do the damage?
Did all my hard work crash down onto your beautiful face?
Is it my own blood that I taste?
And have begun to crave?
Is there redemption in the aching, perplexing guilt
The unmanageable, chaotic, disabling tilt
Of your glance when you look at me in the mirror
In my head it’s assembling, it’s only getting clearer
You are not someone to love but someone to fear
Oh my god
Oh my god
What am I doing here
I’m hyperaware of the feelings you have in regard to the weight of what we were
But I no longer recognize myself in you
I stare hard, I stare harder, but I cannot undo
The wreck in the hard-wiring I thought that I knew
I’m no longer magical to you
I’m insignificant to you.
In everything I do
In everything I do
When you look at my softness, you only see two
Blank, black pupils staring back at you
Blank, black pupils
I’m brave when I’m lost, that means nothing to you
Gemstones, gemstones
Endless incumbent residue
You’ve got a magnifying glass to a tulip, and you’re scarring the seas, the blue
Is this madness particularly painful for you?
Do you sickle like a cell, like the tragedies do?
My escape was you and only you
Five in the morning, I wake up every day to a melody that takes me away
(somewhere pink, somewhere nice, dazed and upbeat)
But when the record comes to an end
I can’t continue to lie, I’m too “adult” to pretend
That I don’t dream of you wrapping your brooding arms around me and holding me tight
Asking me fondly if I had a good or rough night
And kissing me goodbye before work, without any fright
If I could just be your candlelight,
But I’m too pitch black.
I didn’t mean it
Please come back
I didn’t mean it.
(I’m too pitch black)
Every night without you, it’s the light that I lack
I’m too pitch black
I’m too pitch black
I’m too pitch black
