Tell me what I should say
Circumvent me
Take the words out of my mouth
Crush my initiative and mock my joy
I’ll forgive you
But everyone knows what you are
Everyone sees what you do
Cruelty, needless hurt, inflicted again and again,
Masking a petty man and a fragile ego
Bound for naught but a bitter lonely end
A thing that must be done
to take things from better to worse
who can say where it will end
till something breaks
and someone ends up
dead or in prison
the hurt spreads
but I will not be devastated
I will not be judged by the guilty
nothing shall be redeemed till justice be done
bullets, car crashes, liquor and pills,
All end you, fast or slow.
The only way to win
Is not to play the game
It’s rigged to destroy you
You will never get back what you’ve lost, you can only hope that you
Forget what you wanted
And how it made you feel, before you got crushed by desolation
We want the same things
To be loved and seen
But I’m not enough
To fulfill your loss
Didn’t I try? And
Didn’t you prove how
Empty my love was?
We continue this
Tired dance, this way
And that; we don’t want
To leave, and don’t want
To stay, and so we
Shuffle endlessly.
Am I satisfied
With this life, or just
Exhausted and dry
We don’t talk anymore; I
Pretend it’s mutual but
It was you who decided.
Perhaps I wasn’t good for
You, though I always tried to
Be good to you. For the best,
I tell myself, while the you
Shaped hole in me aches, empty
It makes me itch not
To talk to her, but
I hate myself less
I am sure it gave you no
Satisfaction to watch me
Take a fall, and recovery
Was a foregone conclusion.
All the same, have a great life.
Do not talk to me again.
Herman’s Hermitage 