Bound

bound
(Spring 1996) © 1996 by Kristi Martel

You lower-case your name as though you are less significant,
when really we rank them all
with you and me at the top.

But I never agreed to this linear game,
climbing straight up to that mountain-top lean-to. When you build yourself up that high
you're bound
to fall down.

I just wish I didn't feel our rank in debt because of this grid we laid.
I wish you didn't take so much from me. I wish I never gave it away.

I wish I didn't feel so fucking worthy and so fucking poor.
I wish I didn't feel so worthless;
I deserve more.

But you put me up there on that pedestal. I so desperately want to come down.
I just want to learn to do what I want,

and you're not it anymore.
Because what we thought we wanted was a lie.

I don't know what you want anymore. I don't know what's best or fair.
I don't know what I want anymore, and I don't act like I care.

But now it's all so loaded, I feel like a gun.
I feel more hatred for you than for anyone

but myself.

The world owes me so much;
I want to start taking.
But I'm so stuck here in our cubicle that I am breaking.
I am breaking out of here.
I'm hooked up to you like an I.V.
I am standing so strong while starving. I am sick of wasting my hatred here.

Wanted, wanting to
be in love with you has turned to war.
Wanted, wanting to

keep each other in check, to
keep us insignificant,
to keep us up and out with others, to expect only consciousness, only time talking and sex
has turned into
only you and only me

alone at the top of that fucking sky-scraper
in a pent-up house inside our minds.
I say, "You betrayed me."
I say, "You are not my lover anymore."
But every word in my mouth is full of smoke, is full of shit.

I want to live in the outside of us.
I want everyone to hear this.
I want to be seen and heard
and make you understand that I care. But I

I know this is killing me.

You lower-case your name as though
you are so insignificant.
It's such a lie.
You're so damn important to me at this time.