Deconstruction

your downcast eyes
your nervous hands
shifting in discomfort
from one place to another

you're down again

-surrounded
you've let the problems seal
congeal - harden to impenetrable
again

i want to help
i want to extend
but the same wall that holds you in
is the one that blocks me out

try
just try

there is a wall
made of bricks and crumble paster
that i have to patch
with tears and scars
this is what holds me in
every action builds it higher
every word is another brick
it's my wall, it's mine
this is what's keeping us all safe
and i'll defend it with sticks and stones
i'll take the bricks
and throw them at you (all of you)
because you can't climb my walls

but why do you defend it?
what does it keep us safe from?
ourselves?

each other?

you?

why do you not want your walls

to be climbed?
why do you want

no one inside?

what is your cause,
that you defend so staunchly?
is your vigilance misdirected?

or is there something else
that i'm missing?

i want to help
but i can't help without knowing

if i don't defend
i will attack
there will be no protection from me
i will be tearing both of you apart
i will be defeating my allies
killing the ones i love
you are safe from me
only when you cannot reach my truth

but what truth is there left?
what is there that could kill me
other than you simply saying
that you no longer love me?

or you hate me?

or you no longer care?
i see your point
but fail full comprehension
help me understand

maybe it wouldn't kill you
(maybe the enemy are really people -
but it's war. you have to kill or be killed)

but it would kill me
i've made my choices
i've made my promises
i can't have everything
and so i close my eyes
i feel: i accept: I do not deny:
but i cannot break my promise
i cannot be a double crosser

break your promise to whom? i don't expect you to change your

-mind
-decision
-choices

i told you from the beginning
that it was your choice
i wasn't lying

but to what promise do you refer?

and to whom?

to me.
to him.

if i obeyed my instincts i would hurt:
you.

you would want more

of what you could not have
him.

he would wonder if i really

loved him
me.

i would be the scale in the middle

2 100 newton weights on either side

i would break

shatter

shrapnel all over you

but what is this promise?
it seems that it's become

more than you intended

worse, in a way

i'm not asking you to change

your mind
i'm just asking you to open up
to speak
to not close up

your promise has made you reclusive
your promise will kill you before
anything else does
even yourself

it would hurt you more
for me to open up
if you came inside my walls
they would collapse on top of you
and you would be crushed
my promise . . . is something i've never had before
my promise is the gold

shining gold
that i keep hidden within the dull brick of my walls

to the gold . . .

the same thing that makes you cry
is what makes you happy
throughout all of this?

i've realized that it would probably

~~hurt me~~ ~~kill me~~ pain
for you to tell me all
to express the extent of what you feel
for him

i've tried to disconnect myself from it
create armor against the bricks

of your walls
but even chainmail has chinks

i don't want to know that much
but i still want to help you
i still want to stop

your pain

you can't stop my pain
my pain is never ending
see, i told you.
you don't want to hear it all
you are digging a hole
you think you'll dig a tunnel beneath my walls
but you're just digging yourself in,
deeper and deeper.
and soon the flame will go out
the canary will die
you'll be suffocated in the underground gases
stuck in the mud

but i like the mud

i realize that i can't fully stop

the pain
i realize that it will never fully

go away
but you seem to have resigned yourself
registered and dead-set
to your pain

fatalism - pessimism
suddenly i'm the one holding on
because you've already let go

close your fingers again
clench your hand
i know the metal is hot
i know it burns
but don't abandon yourself to the suffering
don't sit in the mud and the gloom
push it away
but don't push me away
i'm not trying to be your enemy
i'm trying to help you

stop waving your arms,
stop screaming
and open your eyes

calm.

you can be helped
if you'd just let someone try

but i like the mud, you say
and your face is stubborn
it's almost a joke
but not really
and i'm angry
now
angry at your weakness
angry at your willingness to dig
bury yourself deeper in the rut

self pity disgusts me
(but aren't i pitying myself, too?)

you insist you want to know the truth

you only want to help
but you aren't

the stormy day
they're all pulling on me
every which way

thunder
fills me with glory
and inspiration

i scream
and scream
and scream
it brings satisfaction
but not enough
i want to tear something up
i want to cut myself

i could
it would be easy
i could take my mind somewhere else
and bury the knife in
deeper

and deeper

i could die

and it's everybody. everyside. i want to, but i can't

take care of all of them
Fuck all of you.

then tell me how i can help, dammit.
i'm being stubborn because

i don't want to let this go

i don't want to see you go
down

my weakness?
how?
where did self-pity enter into this?
this is a selfless act on my part
i'm not doing this for my own benefit
i've already been trampled,
and there's not much farther for me to fall
but you don't need to
you have what i don't:
the means to lift yourself up higher
don't block that out with your walls

of protection

of brick

of ignorance
i'm here.
i'm not doing this for the reasons you think i am.
i'm doing this because i care.

why won't you see that?

this is the last
of my poetry
i don't want to hurt you
any more than i already have
i don't care if you're doing this

"for your own benefit"

or not -
(and what is "this")
but i'm not going to do it anymore
i'm going to take care of myself.
i can't afford to stress out
about what you're feeling

you're fucking yourself up.
you're not listening.

you're getting yourself in a rut.
i won't try to make you understand anymore.
i can't.

you want to help me?
then help yourself.