Do as I say,
There are rules in this house,
Confess your trespasses,
Obey us without questioning,
Don’t stray from the norm,
Keep your thoughts to yourself.
Delicate, vulnerable beings
Ground up and extruded,
Forced into a mold greased with
Insecurity and fear.
Unmet needs, unfinished business.
Creativity, humanity desecrated.
I told her my worth,
Through my actions,
What I would
Settle for,
Such was my desperation.
She gleefully accepted,
Repeatedly indulging in
My diminished sense of
Self — the overtly needy
Kindness of someone
Not yet confident.
A lesson lost on me
Until I was ready.
She always knew
He was extremely weak,
Something about the
Need to control every
Situation or the way
He would twitch when
His authority was
Questioned or any part
Of his self-aggrandizing
Pronouncements were
Challenged, a strange way
To live, always tiptoeing
Around the truth to save
An inadequate man’s ego.
I never knew how much I loved you
Until I saw you with someone else at that
Dinner party. Exchanging superficial
Pleasantries with the social climber to
My left, forced laughs, feigned interest,
A burning focus on your glowing visage.
Meet my eyes, acknowledge I mean
Something, that I wasn’t just some whim,
A forgettable dalliance until the right one
Came along and swept me from your
Consciousness, kicking an unwanted
Pebble from a manicured path.
After all these years
My heart still races
When I see you somewhere.
A shared smile,
A silly joke.
You and me.
So, anyway, as I was saying,
I wasn’t sure if I should tell him
But, if I don’t, it’ll just get worse,
And that’s not good for anyone.
Of course, I could hold off and
Let him know on some other occasion,
But then there’s that thing that
Happened last time when I
Had the same conundrum.
Sitting in the dark
Clutching what he sees
As the last vestiges
Of his power and prestige.
Things have changed too much,
They’re just not the same
As when he was growing up,
Burdensome reality.
Everything was better when
Things rightfully went his way,
Not because of who he was,
Just by random chance.
Acutely uncomfortable with
The raw pain he hears gushing
From the other end of the line,
He goes to his standard
Responsibility-shirking retort,
Diverting attention while
Further wounding his victim.
He wins the battle without
Realizing he’s lost everything else.
He breathes a sigh of relief,
At least he didn’t have
To admit to anything.
A scenario briefly flashes
In his mind, unhinged parents
Directing their rage at him,
His desperate attempts
To escape at any cost.
You could have just told me that
You didn’t want to see me any
Longer instead of inviting me to
The party so I could be an
Eyewitness to the horrifying
Spectacle of you greatly enjoying
Someone else’s company.
It might have saved my heart from
Hemorrhaging behind a freakishly
Plastered-on smile and compulsive,
Frail attempts at humor.
Spasming, freshly wounded.
