The Hard Way

Sometimes I pray for a heart of stone. For a colder, uncaring heart. It isn't forgiveness that I'm looking for: I need something to smash my heart into a thousand pieces, so I can pick through the shards and shape the ones I want into a new, mosaic version: a heart that learns from its mistakes and never cries while driving.

A lover for your life, and nothing more/


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There isn’t enough space here. [world enough/ and time]
I suffocate slowly, fingers wrapping tightly/blue veins (in vain). [[The tongue takes on the attack, the machinations begin with each blip in the brain.]] I fill your head with these notions when I can't (bring myself to) endure them (alone). I'm in the Business of Despair (which is cyclical/I cycle through/recycling)/(to put in a quarter and come out shiny and clean) & have always done everything the hard way.

There are { } regrets and there are { } Regrets. I, recurring: to learn how to learn from old mistakes. Still can’t pull my fingers away from old war wounds. I am a chronic destroyer of self. It was never enough to be half-in/half-loved/half-done. [I make myself sick with these thoughts.] Haven’t known Peace in a long time.

But still, to have regrets is not the same as to have made mistakes. To misspeak. You were not mine (but still I try to test your metal).

I loved your son for his sturdy arms/ we both learned to cradle, then live without/

You were my Mourning/Morning Glory. [is there any glory in mourning?]
We killed each other at first sight. Don’t you know? I waste away in those arms, wither in the warmth of your shadow (still retreat into this cave again). You are terrible in your magnificence (& shake me to my very core). prophesizing our own destruction, the sensational demise of an atomic romance. He is not the docile sapling I recall.

She sprouted from a seed of unknown origin, flighty and borne aloft by the slightest whim/wind. blown where the wind blows. She ripened slowly on the vine, tended to by a constant hand. (It took nearly ten gardeners just to pull back the weeds). He took his time/cultivated her slowly. Tended tenderly/Tried & True, until [ ]. (She was one autumn afternoon drive away from destruction.) Then, tried & tired, he turned from her (garden/stalk) and gave her up for all the tea in China (& she died that day).

I’m in love with my own preconceived notions. (can break myself down easily enough. never learned to read his mind, and he never needed to read mine [but we would never starve together. I’m not afraid of the famine, but I tremble at the thought of a flood].) [[If the person I was then saw the person I am now, she would just never stop throwing up.]] foaming at the mouth/not a sane thought in this skull. Dream at night of all the things you’ll leave behind, the pieces to save when you go. A box of memories to pour over, to take “just like a woman." The thought of having only your picture to look at/to look after me in my old age – you always/only break my heart.

I have been used (up) and left (out) (to dry). I feel now, more certain than ever, that it was not meant for me to have or to hold, but instead to long for and never find, for as long as I live/all the days of my life. Ours is a (violently/brutally/fiercely) tragic romance. (heartbreak follows, nips at the heels.) He was the very embodiment of Calamity. You annihilate me. All your inconsistencies, they raze me down. My lungs recoil, tight as any fist, and ready to fly. You take away my very breath, and never give it back.

(I remember the story of how he almost died in the river that day, undercurrent strong and tender as any death grip/lover’s touch). Eased into oblivion, nothingness, somethingness?

We are all the same. Nothing ever changes.
The lost stumble -- the brave survive. We do what we need to do to ensure that our hearts continue beating. I will lose you to your own battles (but) I am growing a heart as calloused as a river man – gnarled patches, rough with defiance. Teaching myself to inhale the smoke, to fight/kick my way upstream. To keep my head above water. You think it would be lying to each other if we tell those secrets we’ve hidden for so long, well, Boy, you’re gonna carry that Weight a long time.

It is quite the trick, to detach one’s self.
Should we all be so lucky as to know the hollowness of our own bodies/chests/hearts at least once every lifetime or so.