Anaesthetic 7: Converse-Interrogation

If my life was as easy as a questionnaire, 
I wouldn’t be spending my time looking for the answers. 
Would it not be too simple being spoonfed these answers?
Now, if I were to simply give all my the answers away,
Then there’s no fun or challenge, right?
But sometimes I don’t even know what questions to ask myself.
So what makes you think I’ll have an answer to anything you say?
Who honestly wants to be interrogated?
Then, as soon as I give you an answer,
You instantly have an opinion on what I said.
Why must you challenge any of my answers?
You’re the one who asked!
Honestly, please let my answers lie. 
Because if it’s truth you’re looking for, 
Then I can’t be the only one putting thought into the conversation.
Lest you might somehow overthink what I say.
Why do I answer at all, what do you have to gain?
Here I am asking questions, when all you wanted was to learn, 
and I just wanted to be taken at face value some of the time, 
but I’m being constantly derided for answering the way I do. 
And if you wanted me to just shut up-

Fine, but think about this for a moment.
I answer these questions because you’re so curious,
But you can’t even answer mine!
Now, that doesn’t seem fair.
Is it really a conversation if only one side asks the questions?
Come now… 
And listen close to all the answers you didn’t want to hear:

I was not put on the earth to smile for you.
I am not your puppet, nor your doll.
I don’t want your hands on me.
I have no shame and much less left for you.
Don’t use the illness of your head to imprison me
I will not be a hostage, a prisoner to your will.
Don’t tell me I was the best you’ve ever had,
It’s obvious I was, but I was the one smart enough
To escape the hopeless situation I was in. 
There will be nothing calm about my talk
When the pain in my calves I wish was cut in half.
Chalk it up to bad timing for my walk,
My legs balk at the thought of taking anymore steps,
But I would gladly do so in order to walk out of this
Converse-interrogation.

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Anaesthetic 6: The Curse of Her Doppelgänger Sorrows.

She sees you everywhere she goes.

Every single part of life that she knows,

Deeply entangled in proof of your existence.

Your doubles haunt her, their very resemblance,

Even in a perfect stranger’s passing semblance,

Sends pangs of regret through to her stomach.

The engagement ring you both hand picked

Underneath the tree at a summer picnic;

The park’s memory inescapably tormenting.

You cannot stop her incessant remembering

Or ease her fears, for her body trembling

is the only response she has to her haunter.

So my dear Ex-spectre,

Do you really expect her

To simply move on so fast?

When she found out she wasn’t the last

And how much you lied about the past,

“How could she ever recover?” I ask…

When in the light she wants to bask,

but wears her heartbreak, an eternal mask,

To hide her grief, disappointment, and shame.

But who else is there for her to blame

When everything reminds her all the same?

“That’s just the curse of her doppelgänger sorrows.”

 

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Photo by Kayla

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Promise 9: Exist

Desperation is not something I wear on my sleeve.

What I want is to truly be loved, not lost.

And I, having given you my few choice years

the very few that I have to give to another person,

Perhaps made a grave error in trusting myself.

My desparation is not one borne of a need to find just anyone;

It’s the fear of making a mistake and I feel you were my greatest,

But I will not pretend, not even for a minute, that what we had

or rather, what we worked towards was anything free from flaw.

I hate to feel that way towards someone

whom I’ve grown to love so dearly.

When someone who knows I exist

tries to treat me like something that does not,

It sickens me. I’m hopeless for getting so close

And offering things I can’t possibly give.

It gets to a tipping point where I want to get closer,

But I will end up hurting both of us.

But it is not time to say such things.

You had to have earned this sentiment,

As I once had to in order to earn the privilege of doing so.

I wished to learn more about you and I reserve the right

To be careful of you as you have the right to be careful of me,

but it can’t hurt to at least be kind now, isn’t that so?

If only…

I still went through with it that despite that fact.

And I gave a piece of my heart for you to do with as you please,

And though that piece could bend and waver,

and my heart was kept from harms way.

My solemn hope was that you would make my heart whole again

But that piece has never returned,

It remained with you,

Never to be seen again.

What kind of life would I lead if I just wanted

to stay in such a safe distance away from it all.

where no one truly knows anything about me

                                                no one can destroy me,

Where :                              no one can doubt me.

                                    no one can prove

                              non-existence,

I never wanted to hurt anyone and I never wanted to, but-

I never would have dreamed I would ever get this close,

that I would ever get so close to wanting to destroy it all.

 

Anaesthetic 5: Fishing for Platitudes

Tell me something new, anything really.
Tell me that I suck when it’s my fault,

I don’t want those good words when bad hits.

Just because nobody’s perfect doesn’t mean we can’t try.

“I’m really not okay,

and neither are you.”

Those kinds of answers will be met with a fake grin

I’m a bad liar, but I’m a far cry from pathological.

In truth, if I keep being lied to, I’ll never learn my lesson.

And all these things being said will drown out anything useful.

 

“You don’t want things to be awkward?

Sorry, but that’s what you asked for.”

You thought we had something, but that was never the truth.

And so, you make excuses about how it will never be;

When all I wanted was simplicity and all I get is duplicity

Because, clearly, a simple reason is too complicated to have,

“You never even bothered to learn about all the bad

and if I were anyone else, things could be much worse.”

If being called too nice is code for me not to care

And being stepped all over is how I move forward

Then fish in the sea are worthless without a boat

I guess I’m stuck up the Amazon without a prayer.

It sucks when I don’t learn anything new,

And I become complacent when I just want to know

All the things I suck at for my own betterment,

And yet,
People still think I’m fishing just for the fun of it.

 

Anaesthetic 4: Still Life

It’s really not fair.

A still life photograph just gets to be.

Nothing moves, and yet it gets to feel alive.

A great photo. One that lives beyond its scene,

But the photo of this sad woman is inert.

She has to keep her lethargic expression

Forever, an entire lifetime in the same place.

She festers in her unhappiness for all eternity.

I wonder if she had the capacity to feel content

With not having to ever be taunted by happiness;

Feelings that are so fleeting and so out of reach.

How lucky is she to not be tempted by such folly

I don’t get to move on.

The finality of still life was enviable.

The subjects were nudged, just so, into the right position.

Instead, I was stuck in an infinite loop, a living nightmare,

Like that moment of time was paused, rewound, and played,

Over and over; slides were shown until each cell deteriorates.

I can’t just forget about it.

It melts into the frames and that moment of time

Burns into my cheeks, the searing wetness of droplets,

The hot sorrowful stream flows from my eyes

Burns in more still than any photograph in my mind

And becomes more vivid and real than any memory.

 Acting as though nothing ever happened.

I can’t look you into the eyes as I once did.

I don’t get to feel the sudden rush of joy as I had before

And you were the thief that robbed that pleasure from me,

But where your eyes are, I don’t get to see a face any longer.

All I can see is everything that was, everything that used to be

My vision fades as I drift in and out of that time and place

As my mind constantly plays my heartbreak on repeat.

No closure.

I don’t want anything from you, ever,

What I truly want is to never want anymore.

What I never want is what I still have.

To have that moment erased forever

So I can go back to looking at faces like faces

and start thinking about the past as the past

and I can finally leave then back then.

I want to live now like it’s now

I want to breathe my breaths

and I want to cry my cries

and sob for the present

Then collapse inward

And avoid contact

With you

But…

Memory betrays

There’s never enough in frame

Life is not still life.

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Thanks to Kayla for the awesome header photo!

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Anaesthetic 2: Nocturne

The days I can’t find. I’ve looked;

I cannot see beyond the pillow.

I’ve tried and tried, but in my dreams

Are my dreams; My aspirations are of sleep.

During the day fall is my night rise,

Wakefulness is my fight, my solemn right,

and my struggle, what trouble.

The musings of malcontent

Infesting my consciousness

Like the nightcrawlers writhe.

Beneath my feet, the centipedes,

And all other things that impede

hide under the folds, nooks and crannies

of the darkest parts of my being.

Above me, the moths breed

In my fleeting thoughts of recluse.

Within my eyelids, I find refuge

 And my only respite is when

The day stays away and my night stays night.

Promise 6: Edge

Encompassed from zenith to horizon,
From Edge to Edge of my periphery,
The splendid memory of you and me
Like the Edge of a cliff facing an ocean.

Your voice, soothing and endearing,
Swishing, lightly whistling, and hush.
Like a gentle nudge, the wind to push
A warm breeze that tickles my hearing.

So picturesque, as if taken from my past.
I swear I’ve seen light before it turns dark .
A reminder of how much I want to disembark
Beyond a view I never thought would last.

A misstep here means an end to a memory kept.
Waves crash, spurn stone in the perilous shallows.
I watch safely from a distance the danger below,
But here I am, at the Edge, anticipating my steps.

Since I’m not certain, I maintain my foothold.
Should my memory and reality stay distinct?
and in my good sense, perhaps my instincts
wish to carefully tread along that threshold.

I wish to take the next step, but everything I fear,
In some delusion or misunderstanding, I fathom,
That if my demise awaits me there at the bottom
I’ll stoically plummet to my death and disappear.

But since I’m not sure, and completely uncertain
I don’t wish to fall over the cliff side and dive off
If the sea wasn’t willing to break my fall that day.
That cliff would stay there as we last left it, then
And etched into my memory as the ocean sloughs;
Erosion weathers rock, sediment, and sand away.
But I will remain unchanged for when you pledge
That you will wait for me when I fall over the Edge.