am I so bad?
for wanting to know that peace?
I don’t have the time anymore,
I start all my poems in the middle.
No preamble, no watch on my wrist.
only anger, only fear, only
the knowledge that I’m alone out here.
I can go home anytime, but
in a realer way, I can’t.

you’d think I’d know how to stick it out by now.
for all the self-abuse,
I don’t have much stamina to show for it.
for all the ache and prayers,
I get what I asked for and
again, it’s not what I really wanted.
I’m starting to think I’ll never get
what I really wanted and
even if I did
I’d ruin it within the hour.

I am still trying desperately
to manufacture proof.
proof that they were wrong,
that I’m right, that I can
be good / do good / make good things.
that I have a use
beyond self-destruction
and pointless noise.
hard to hear over the noise.
timing is another thing,
anger is another thing,
bad things happen:
get over it.
I’m over it,
but really I’m not.
really I’m a little girl in bed
hoarding every wrong thing in the universe.
every bad feeling, each mistake, every bruise I’ve ever gotten.
I want to let it go I think
but I don’t know how and
I don’t want anyone to teach me how.

big pond, dog pound, kennel cough, fish caught
writhing angry in the net, fighting and fighting
to be free, but there is no free,
is no end, is no ocean to go back to
like there used to be.
it’s over, it’s over, get over it.
keep working, move on. what if
I’m still tangled? what if I stay
tangled forever? what if I’m stuck
and who I am is stuck?

calm down. come back.
get better. be better.
have you been eating?
sleeping? drinking
water?
come on, hold me.
just hold me, will you?
let me pretend for a second,
pretending is all I have.
give me just this one thing
without making me prove I deserve it.