None of my poems come from a source of perfection.
And yet you always judged me expecting me to be perfect.
I have never been. I have made mistakes, I have hurt people.
I have been so endlessly sorry, punished myself worse than
Anybody else could have done and it was never enough.
I self-flagellated, said the worst things to myself, making things
Right and worse.
You were so disappointed that I had cracks
In my shell. I tried to be immaculate, it never worked, it’s impossible.
I know when I’ve fucked up. And I know why. I ask myself questions.
I do, but you never cared about reasons, about why things happened,
What I felt. There have never been dialogues, only monologues of pain.
I am not your perfect doll. I am not here to be played by you and your
Unholy baptisms. I stand by my perspective, that’s my truth, finally
It’s released. Do with it what you want. Call me obsessed, backward-facing,
Past-consumed, angry, aggressive. Maybe it’s time to be all of those things,
Using my catapult and be free. Yes, of you and your dreamscapes that were never real.
You pretended to be so strong all the time and I held on to that, but
I confided in you, opened up about what happened to me and how I was
Falling apart and felt so fucking helpless and alone and on my own,
And all you could do was look away from me and tell me to get it together,
To be strong, that the past is the past.
Remember when you burst into my house
And completely fell apart?
How you fell on your knees (you looked like the most
Astonishing Madonna), your hair streaking the alignment of books, your head on my
Floor and I held you as tightly as I possibly could, nothing mattered more, then and there,
Than to have you in my arms, let you scream and curse the universe, I felt your pain.
I could deal with it, I knew it so well, you filled the room with your world and I
Had your back.
I remember your face in the faded light of the streets and how you rejected
What tore me apart, what made me cry once I’d get home, and it just
Seemed like you couldn’t care, like you couldn’t let yourself care, like
That’s what you had been taught.
You took and you took, and I loved you, but you just couldn’t
Give back what you took and needed the most.
Croque-Melpomene 