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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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.

 

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.