You thought that you were so strong.
You were convinced. And you were in
Many ways, when you had to fight and
Endure, when you were torn down by
Insults, when they made you suffer, you
Were so strong, but it came at a cost, it
Had always been that way, the slowly
Breaking heart underneath the defensive
Exterior. The terror just kept finding you.
You were looking for something, for friendships
To mean something, go somewhere, for love
To reveal itself, to finally show up, to mean something,
Waiting for the sensation of feeling alive, for your
Path to declutter, eradicate pest weeds, deblocked and free.
You kept falling on your face, one step at a time,
A collapsing house of cards, the endless domino
Effect, thinking that you knew who you were,
You’ve lived through so many personalities in your
Twenties, I wonder how you could come up for air.
You’ve tried and tried. A face, a mask, a blur after another.
Failing to fit, failing to fit in, feeling inadequate, left out,
Then too integrated, bored, stagnant, looking for freedom,
Cutting cords, again and again, nothing sat right, nothing
Felt right, they didn’t, they would never feel right and you knew
It but you refused to listen to your better judgement, you let
Everything they did slide and slide, and you would always
Drown in your own agitation and anger.
I wish I could have been a better friend when everything was
Already in the past. People would ask me about you, and I
Felt so ashamed of you, I blamed you, I shamed you, I repeated
The cycle, I should have stood by you with introspection and
Compassion, protecting you, understanding you, that you did the
Best you could, that you felt what you felt, thought what you thought,
For a reason, in your own time, trying to find your way back to yourself,
And it has never been easy, you always fought your own battles and I
Wish I could have had your back instead of punishing you in retrospect
And feeling guilty about all our mistakes when we did the best we could
And simply didn’t know better.
Croque-Melpomene 