#23

Thursday, September 1, 2011

I sit
Reading your poetry
Tobacco in my lower lip
Filling myself with low-grade alcohol
Trying not to feel anything
And also trying to feel the way I used to feel back when I first met you
Wishing I could write the way you do
Symbolism and metaphor
Big words I understand and have no idea how to use
Realizing now that you are so much more than I ever knew
That you are so much more than I will probably ever know
Realizing that my scars have not fully healed
The way I thought they had
That right now, I'm reopening old wounds
And for what?
Because I want to understand you?
Yes
But why?
Because part of me still wants to be with you
No matter how hard I try to kill that part of me
To throw it off a cliff and watch it shatter on the ground below
To hang a noose around its neck and kick at the chair
To force-feed it sleeping pills
And put a plastic bag over its head
I hate this
I hate the fact that I'm writing this
The fact that I speak in cliches I've been using forever
That everyone has been using forever
That I have no sense of rhythm or rhyme
That I'm only able to speak in common language
And write in freeform verse
I feel like the Hemingway of poetry right now
And I can't fucking stand Hemingway
I want to be cryptic, want to seem obscure and thoughtful
But I can't write like that
I can't write the way you can
And of course, I've made it about me again
That's all I ever seem to be able to write about
And then I comment on it in my own writing
Fuck, I'm stupid
I never should have started this
And as much as I want you to see this
I know you never will

======

I keep trying to see myself in the things you write
But I know that's wishful thinking