tfw you think you can
protect your heart
by making them mad at you
"I don’t care; I didn’t
want you anyway," she
lied desperately
don’t mind me; just cutting
off my nose to
spite my face again
tried to claw my way
out of the darkness, but
that just made it worse
revised my angry poem
but it still reveals
too much
go ahead, fight back –
at least then I can pretend
you care
I may seem like a manic/magic elven/pixie
dream girl. I may even
play one on Twitter.
but those portraits leave out the down side
of the swing. mania
has its price. those girls are
always so whimsical, happy, cute/kawaii,
they never cry
themselves to sleep,
they never set themselves on fire
for love, let alone for hate.
so I’m burning up in here
alone, ’cause I’m searching
for other mystical, half-mythical
creatures, heroic figures
riding up from the West
appearing suddenly in the forest
shrouded in fog and mystery; the Wild
Hunt – that sort of thing.
I couldn’t help
myself, I had to make
a quick exit. I knew
at some point I would
be asked to leave, and
given the circumstances, that
it would probably be sooner
rather than later, so
I couldn’t bear to linger.
the last thing I want to do
with you is to overstay
my welcome, so I ran
away before anyone had a chance
to tell me to go,
with a precipitous haste
that possibly may have seemed
somewhat unseemly.
I’m sorry if it came across
as rude. it was not that I
disdained your company, more like
I felt too vulnerable to
stay a second longer. like a
naked crab, I flagrantly fled
back to my sheltering shell.
I get it; you don’t need to rub
it in. I’m already bleeding
from a thousand self-inflicted wounds,
and you are the knife
that I turn within myself;
that is love, to quote
Kafka. and to think
I felt halfway to happy
for a second.
you look good: your recent
illness seems to have
improved your form, or at least
what didn’t kill you
appears to have
made you stronger. I would
never say this to your face, because
I hate it when
people say it to mine, but
it kind of looks like
you’ve lost weight. maybe
it’s just that
wearing a dark color
is more flattering,
a phenomenon I’ve also
experienced.
not that I have the right
to notice, or care – a fact of which
I’m acutely aware – but
it’s so nice
to see you out
and about
again.
my heart was desolate, a
blasted wasteland where nothing
could grow, I
salted the earth and pulled up
every flower – they weren’t viable,
there was no hope for them – and I thought
I could never feel anything again
but my ever-present
companion, my dark and lonely,
sometimes lovely, bone-deep sadness.
but.
now there’s a chance, somehow
a new shoot is trying
to grow. I watch it in
amazement, touched
by the way life insists
on coming back, no matter
how annihilated
the garden. I’m rooting
for you, little shoot. good
luck. you’ll need it.
you’re missing in action and I’m
missing you. not like that,
maybe a little, but more just
as a friend. yes, I was mad
before, so much so
that it took me ten days
to get over it, before I realized
that my anger really had no basis,
I was building a towering rage
on a bed of quicksand.
but now I think it’s better
to accept my lot, and take
what I can get, which is
way better than nothing.
I know that eventually
this little ache
will heal itself.
who is that girl
who let so many
people beat her up?
we’re so ashamed of her, no wonder
she won’t come forth
to tell her story. have I met her
yet, is it someone
I know? where did she go?
come out, come out
wherever you are. olly-olly
oxenfree.
use the planchette
to spell your name. we’re
doing another roll call.
don’t bother knocking on the table
or making the candles
flutter, we need it
in words.
who’s the girl
who taught herself to read
at age three, who still vividly remembers
the Richard Scarry book
with the picture of Lowly Worm,
she felt so incredibly sad
when she read those words
but didn’t know why
until many years later, because I
was a lowly worm,
crushed under mother’s heel
for so long. how the hell
did that child even know what
“lowly” meant? come, tell us.
even the worm must turn
and have her day.
I’m laying down
my arms. I suppose
I must admit that
I’m not entirely
free of fault here.
I could have retired
from the field gracefully
when it became apparent
that I had picked up
the wrong kerchief. to fight
so fiercely for the favor
of someone whose eyes
and heart were elsewhere
was my own pointless
misadventure.
sometimes a windmill
is just a windmill. the
Fair Dulcinea is not really
a ragged peasant girl under a spell
that requires me to give myself
three thousand lashes
to break it, she’s just
otherwise occupied.
burn all my books
of chivalry, then
and let me swear off this madness
for a year. we’ll see
if I still want to pick up a lance –
or a Lance – when my blood
has cooled.
newsflash: I haven’t changed.
if I’ve become yesterday’s news
to you, it’s only because
you realized there was a chance
to have an actual adult
relationship with someone
you seemed to like just fine
until you found out she
wanted to be
with you. that says a lot more
about you than it does
about me, frankly. you
might want to discuss that
with your therapist.
you’re that dog
from Aesop’s fable, the one that
had a bone, but
when he saw his reflection
in the water of a stream
he was crossing, was jealous
of that other dog’s
clearly superior bone,
and in opening his mouth
to bark at the interloper
dropped the actual real bone
into the stream. a bone in the mouth
is worth three in the stream.
well have fun forever
chasing what you can’t
have. I’m no man’s
bone. laters!
R. Brookes McKenzie 