Sad eyes

I can’t be

You don’t think I need to

You don’t think I have to

I give everything to my heart; my children

to you

And you think it’s so little,

A blade of grass has more worth than my all. A pebble, a spec of dust.

I can’t even sink into those words the way

You want me to

“You can’t be a dreamer.”

“You will not be a writer.”

“You aren’t going to waste my time.”

Because I’m so indebted to you,

That my time is on your hour clock,

And it has became intrinsically linked

To your time.

If I sink anymore into your

Volcanic and land mashing, land forming magma

I won’t even exist. So I can exist and not exist just enough to create your perfect understanding of my self image.

And that’s why you say it so often

And that’s why you need me to report those damning bills of high cost

To my hand, to my brain.

Let it sink in.

“Your fantasies won’t pay for this.”

Dumb bitch.

Dumb stupid bitch.

“You’ll pay for this.”

But I know somehow across the planet,

There was something special about a new person who called out to me.

It was the way your words called out to me, in secret, a person I never even met.

There was something you said that called out to me,

Even though we never met.

There was something about you

That met my eyes

More than the sweetest gaze,

And yet, we never met.

Across the invisible lines of earth

Across everything that will keep me from you

Across slabs of granite, concrete, and distance,

I picture us together

In a very large room full of strangers.

And time goes very fast, but as we look at each other,

Time is perfect and soft and just right,

And I finally fall,

And you catch me

Without my eyes breaking yours,

And you say

I won’t let you give up your dream,

I won’t let you feel like nothing.

We won’t stop dreaming

We won’t stop. We won’t stop until that long chain of broken train tracks

Are linked up,

And though I am free to show you my haphazard and unkempt mess of a track,

You don’t think I have to

Do this alone anymore.

The weight of that bursting speeding

Train no longer goes over me,

I am my own blade of life,

And I am—

Fuck it.

Just kiss me.

I can’t be keeping track of all of these

Sad, broken metaphors.

But we don’t exist, just like these words

That escape my shuddering breath

Against your hard gaze.