What Life

 

What life, that was his answer, then.

And I knew just what he meant.                                 

Neither of us had much to lose.

But we knew, both of us knew,                   

one of us would hurt before the end

and broken hearts are hard to mend.

 

Oh, how easy it is to ignore

things like facts, and fear,

and common sense, when                        

kisses are like lightning storms

and pulses pound with such demand.

 

I am the way I have always been.

Am I? The way I’ve always been?

Maybe, this is who I was, before,

just a daughter, a mother, a wife.

(Until I wasn’t anymore.)

                                 

Or maybe that girl-child-woman                              

 broke into so many pieces

that even she will never find all of them.

Maybe she’s long gone and

you’re looking at the shell of a woman

who so selfishly survived.

 

Or, okay, maybe I’ve been fucked up since the day I was born!

The ‘when’ hardly matters when you

suddenly, somehow, find yourself whole.

If you can acknowledge the fucking travesty of living.

If you can remember the rhythm of your own heartbeat.

 

“Self-care” can, by definition, only be selfish.

Self-absorbed bitch, he named me, and he was right.

Because not killing myself takes all that I have.

I know my worth; I am a burden if anything at all.

But I will keep going, even if I have to crawl.

 

If I live selfishly, care for myself,

with this never-ending “self-care”

then I don’t want to die. Every day.

I can exist, I can just be without

fighting myself for my self.

                   

I can just

be without.

 

Maybe you don’t know the hopelessness

of a hopeless life.

If I’ve accidentally, finally, for now,

found a way to want a life?

What line would I not cross?

What rules would I not toss aside?

For the smallest chance to abide

inside my own mind and not mind?

 

I am no one’s happiness, I am no one’s home,

not even my own.

Still, I know

that any kind of “us”

even an “us for now”

will be time well spent.