don't make me promise; i can't keep it.



you called me beautiful, and it hurt.
you said my name slowly, and i cried.
i saw you for the boy only you know you were.
and you saw me as broken, as everyone knew.
we held hands, friendly flesh never hurt.

you were the only person to ever write a poem
to document the tragedy you found in my every
word.
you were the only person to cry for a night
over the depression you found in my every
word.

you were my sympathetic eyes,
when all i could see was blind teenage rage.
you were my ever wasted youth,
when all i could hear was my own sick lectures.
you were my conscience,
when all i could be was flesh and bone.

and heather pat my back, laughing.
said, girl, i love your back bone.
and i smiled.
i found out then when you're soft,
you're soft to everyone.
and when you're hard,
you're not hard to everyone.

i have the most peculiar memory of my father
crying, when i was a small child. that isn't
to say he didn't cry easily, but he was very
upset. more than i had ever seen him before.

he told me if i made my mother divorce him, he'd kill me.
i told him that it was his business to handle, not mine.
i was seven years old, i think.

i tell everybody i lost my faith in god at a young age,
and it's the absolute truth.

i have written of it before, but no
memory haunts me as deeply. nothing
can affect you the same way. there
is not one thing in the world that
can make you fear your immortality
as much as being a small, but smart
young child,

and seeing your mother threaten suicide
in the carpeted country-styled kitchen
she and your grand mother decorated the
year before.

and your dad screams,
and you can't even see through your own tears,
and you run into your room,
with your heart filled wall paper,
and minnie mouse bed sheets,
and the mickey mouse phone you got for christmas.
so you call your grandma,
and your dad comes into your room,
and he says, only loud enough for your seven year old ears to hear,
that if you ever do that again,
he will fucking kill you.
so you lick the salt off your face,
and you stop your hyperventilating.

i have a sense that you don't know how badly i have been hurt.
i have a feeling you think i'm just some self put-upon suicide lolita.
i have a knowledge of you calling me a spoiled, nagging, bitch.
i have a feeling you think i'm caught up in my own sense of loss.
cos i am not saying i've had it the worst.
i'm just saying i've had it bad.

i've had this rage all along,
& i've kept it under my skin.
stop pretending you're the only one to hurt.
or the only person to live a life depressed.
dont ask me to apologise when you offend me.
dont expect me to live up to your standards.