Acquiescence
I can't touch this poem
You cannot give me pain
That was yours
To fashion out of could-bes,
Cutting yourself on scattered shards of glass
You gather lovingly from the ground.
For the pain I have given you
I cannot sate your anger -
A just exchange.
In bleeding for you
I cannot stop your wound.
Even if I grieve at your pain
How can I feel your flames
On my skin?
I was born into your madness
Swelling and churning like a sick stomach
Your mind already losing itself
To the fear that governs me
That piece of me I lost
Belongs all to you
Your right to it a mark of our bond
Though I would give much to have it
It is peculiarly yours.
It is only in our memories
In photos I will never see again
In clothes I will never wear
I have bought myself into a new life
My old skin shed a thousand times
I cannot come back now
You would not want me this way, this me
Does not feed herself to the walls of your prison
Does not fret over old sacrifice
Over who owes what to whom
I know I owe you
My claim to this earth
I owe you the fair
In my dark features
I owe you my nervous ticks
I owe you the absence
That passes over me in moments
I owe you my shadow and my light
I would not give up either:
You gave them to me
I keep them
I take them out when you think
I am not thinking of you
I am strange and strangely without you
I have grown into myself
I have grown out of you
If I ever think of forgetting
A glance in the mirror corrects me
I have not your voice to dissuade me
From foolish actions that threaten your prison
That song has already blasted its walls
This is the song I will sing to my death
I am still singing sadly
You will find me standing
At the point of no return
Where I am strangely at peace
Where I am too tall for the low bough I swing from
Where the cold blue sea is beside me
Where everything is coloured in sadness
Where we see before us quiet acceptance
Where I am frozen in your mind
My bewildered patience waiting
To greet your forgiveness.
