Sunday, February 16, 2014

When I said the Wrong Thing

When I said the wrong thing you looked at me like I punched you in the stomach.
I could say I'm sorry all day, but what if I'm just being me?
This is who I am, apologies.
I'm a lover though, not a hater.
You want me to love only you.
I can do that in a specific way, but I won't stop loving everyone else too.
I love the people who read what I write, alone or in crowded spaces, either way.
I don't even hate the government like so many people unabashedly do.
I love the government, the police, the homeless, the normal ones living respectfully, and perhaps most of all the rebels.
Rebels in disguise.
And I like to think they love me and that maybe a stranger in the street sees me in a special way that no one before ever has, even if for only a moment and then I am forgotten...forever.
I strain to understand how I can better make people forget me and when I least expect it maybe they do.
And I can be alone without the city streets watching me with rolling eyes, every step I take.
And I think if only I can be a great writer someday, then I will know all the illusions and allusions which are so elusive.
But really I don't want to know what I know now.
Can you give me a pill that will erase something inside of me dear doctor?
He says no and hands me another prescription for an anti-depressant.
Ativan, give me Ativan, give me the drug that induces short term memory loss so I don't have to compile so much data effectively and I do it effectively.
I am human, not machine.
But there are qualities reminiscent of a lawnmower, leaving tracks everywhere, and creating order out of chaos.
Did she really just draw a comparison between herself and a lawnmower.
Yes I did and you might just think about that line sometime later and wonder why it was the one that stuck with you.
I'm not telling you what to do, I just know what you'll do.
The audacity of me. Forget about hope. I have little room left in this bunker or cargo bay or whatever vessel is hiding me and bringing me home.
Well, just another home, because I am always at home.
Hey baby, take me out!
We'll go carousing and without a doubt you'll feel special.
Even though the sad truth is I don't make it that way.
You're all special to me.
And you all want favors, ugh that makes you feel ill, right?
Because I think I know what you're thinking.
It's not for me to spell everything out or to remember what your favorite color is.
It's not for me to be exactly who you want me to be.
What is for me is to be myself 110%of the time, even if that means I'm wrong.
Punish me for saying the wrong thing and next time I'll keep my secrets silent.
I can play little miss perfect, I just don't want to.
And you say you've fallen in love with me in a big way and you don't want something temporary.
And I have nothing to say, because that would be lame.
If I don't have the sureness you do, then don't punish me.
My life isn't what yours is and maybe I'll admit that I may have punished you too.
So, we both punished each other for being different and not understanding truths so important and fundamental to us that we've been living with for our whole lives practically.
Someone used to make me apologize. Yes you. And I learned that I would be punished (there's that word again) if I didn't do what the man wanted.
But I am not a man, I am a woman.
And men are from mars and women are from venus.
So what does that tell you?
Being different is okay, we don't have to meld into one person to have love.
And wedding rings don't bring people closer, they just provide proof of something we can never prove.
And when we die we don't go and meet up with our lover or lovers and bond in heaven.
We walk into this life alone and we leave alone.
And if we compromise ourselves for other people we are only selling ourselves short.
So, while I sit and proselytize on one of the only platforms sacred to me.
You might come along for the ride just in case.
In case you're afraid YOU might miss out on some...fun?
You're thinking that perhaps this is not fun.
What's the point of life if you don't have fun living it.
No question mark.
Case in point.
And I point my finger at YOU.
Stop following me around (am I talking to you? Who am I talking to?)
That's for me to know and you not to find out.
When I said the wrong thing I always learned from it.
And my stepfather used to say that mistakes were the best things he did, because he learned something.
And then he killed himself.
I'm wondering if he learned from that mistake.
Maybe he's back here again, sent to the purgatory we call life.
Despite my obstreperous ways I feel like I am in heaven already.
I have felt more pain than a lot of people and less than others.
But none of that is what makes me me, it only adds bright, bold strokes of color across (I refuse to say the canvas of my life, because please) the margins of my soul.
Not the choice we were all hoping for in syntax, but clearly I'm not what you're hoping for.
And my therapist mentioned that maybe I should not use this word "you" with so much regularity, but then I started to see my paralysis and the loss of myself made by critical adjustments.
And then I thought, "You know what? I don't care. I have something no one else here has and why would I surrender the one truly valuable asset someone up in the sky gave me.
No.
Welcome to the world.
A brave new world (yes Alduous).
And sometimes people come and back me up.
They tell me the truth and I hope I embrace it with everything I have.
And next time we say, "Don't worry, be happy."
People will look worried.
Let us as all grow suspicious of happiness.
Let us all hope that we don't need hope.
And when I said something wrong I wasn't there.
This isn't me, I'm not here.
Words woven into me in such an ecstatic heap of treasures that I am constantly waiting for them to call me and they always do and they always give me happiness.
You don't have to worry, I am not in love with another man.
I am in love with something you'll never understand.
And you, I wouldn't presume to guess.
Since that's the ultimate insult to something that deserves to be sanctified in all of us.
Remind me to be myself and I will remind you.
Then again if we need post its for that or cue cards or index cards, we might not have a chance.
I'm going now, but I'll be back again, maybe when you least expect it.
And I'll reserve a table for two in heaven and we can breath there, together.

No comments:

Post a Comment