A shade
Umbra
Staring down
At myself
Doing all the things
I remember doing
At all the same moments
In all the same ways
Umbra
Recalling past events
Overlaid on the present
With disorienting clarity
While reality
Slips out of focus
Or perhaps
Slips into view
Umbra
Watching myself
Live
But closer inspection shows
Not myself
But a parody
And alarmingly
Nobody around me
Notices.
There was a girl-
A decent girl,
Maybe too ambitious.
She knew a boy,
A brilliant boy,
But very reserved.
This brilliant boy
Did stupid things
That she struggled
To comprehend
And finally she realized
He had never let anyone in.
Let me in.
You don’t want to be open
Maybe even with yourself
But there are only 2 options
And it won’t do to take the lesser.
Hating me won’t save you
From the persevering knowledge
That I might be right.
Hating me won’t make
All the things I’ve said
Disappear
Hating me
Simply leaves you one less outlet
And one person who still wants
To be your friend.
Words
Flowing between us
The bridge we’ve been needing
Destroying the warnings we’ve been heeding
The only way to forgiveness
Words
Penitent, waiting
Never admitting
That they share a goal-
Redemption.
I know you are trying
And I know its hard
But someday, soon I hope
You will let me in
Someday, soon I hope
You will trust yourself again
And maybe then
You will trust me too.
You want me to stop
Asking questions
But my ever-inquisitive nature
Won’t permit me
To heed that request
You want me to stop
But are puzzled
By why I care
Maybe I shouldn’t
But I don’t understand
How you can enjoy solitude
And something
About the fact
That you are still speaking to me at all
Tells me that perhaps
Though it means sacrificing
Long-held ideas
It’s nice
That I care
And that hate
Is only a shield
To prevent fully divulging
Everything you keep inside
To one person
Who has a knack for
Asking questions
No mystery, no appeal
Just cold predictions
And overanalyzation
My brain works overtime
Pieces clinking into place
Cold predictions
And overanalyzation
Solve the world’s problems
Leaving it bland
And unintrigiung
Displaced.
Like water in a beaker
I’ve been involuntarily
Shifted
To where the new equation
Demands I be
Replaced-
The acidity of the situation
Has only just stopped
Eating me up.
And the previous
Experiment
Should not have been initiated
Without cursory inspection
Of the MSDS
To see
If synthesis
Might be volatile.
I know I walked into that question. I did. I take full blame for continuing to pursue the subject even after you (you- the ever ambiguous code-word) showed your aversion to it. However, I must wonder at the logic behind your decision.
You don’t hate me because you believe I’m evil, mean, cruel, talkative, arrogant, flippant, or stubborn.
You don’t hate me because of something I did wrong.
To the contrary, you hate me because I am nice, curious, and positive. Because I don’t accept your self-doubt as true or healthy and I know that you are capable of more.
You hate me because for the first time in quite a while, somebody has gone through the effort of trying to understand you- and it worked. You hate me because in asking questions I seem to unsettle your perspective on the world, right after you finally perfected your self-distancing scheme.
You hate me because you are terrified of the alternative.
It will be better one day (if you allow it to be), I promise. Until then I am worried about making the distance wedged between us worse.
I’m spinning
spinning
spinning
My feet are clear
But the world is murky
And directions are a haze
I’m spinning
spinning
spinning
Free from all illusion of stability
Free from all pretenses of focus
I’m spinning…
And the world is turning faster
And I stumble to a halt
Watching chances circle past
I was spinning
spinning
spinning
And now I’ve fallen
dizzy
To the ground.