Cruel

Cruel, I ask.
Am I cruel?

Cruel to keep to myself.
Cruel not to reach.
Cruel not to share.
Cruel to retreat.
Am I cruel to you?
Perhaps.
This would hurt me too.

​

Perhaps…I am crueler to me
Then I am to you.
For all the ways I wish to
dig where the soil may be dry
Where maggots feed on decaying fruit
But instead, I mistake for happy worms

Crueler to sprint over the freeway.
Dodging silent signals from the 101
Searching for the home I thought I had
Only to find the sale was pending
Late into the hour

Crueler still to replay the words in my head
Though I tell them to shut up.
That these were your instructions
And it’s my fault I created the world
where you could sucker punch me on a Thursday night,
that I know what I want and you’ve not been happy,
tell me I’d be okay
How you believed in mysterious fate then -

-click-

Silence.

And for weeks I was blacked out.
An alien.
Salt pouring from every crevasse.
Fives senses fucked senseless.
Nursing my infected heart,
thinking with a mangled brain.
Beautiful roadkill.
Her guts strewn up
on congratulations
and learning something new.

​

You asked to go alone.
Kindly, gently but the message was clear.

No.

From the rug of my childhood home
Clutching my blanket
Feeling like nothing.
Knowing the lines were open,
Knowing I’d played my cards,
Knowing somewhere in your mind
what you once loved tightly
now constricted your growth.
So you thanked it and threw it away
Because you’d sucked everything you could from it
And it was time.

​

I respected your wish.

​

Yes, the silence might hurt you yet,
It’s the kindest thing
I could do
For myself

​

Remember how you wanted to do the kindest thing?

//

The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
Just an average teenager