I'm White, You're Harvest Gold

Somehow, this silence that settled so quickly over everything (the light from the Christmas tree- so much bigger this year- can't illuminate the stunning welts the shame left across my cheek… "Can't or won't?" you said so softly) would be infinities easier to tune out if those four words weren't still ringing in my ears:

"I'm disappointed in you."

And no one seems to understand that I'd take the scars (his hand trailed across my face, asked, and I answered; but never, never could he understand) over the isolation any day, that being deprived of oxygen in this room (the walls are closing in, and God, I wish I'd painted them a different color because this choked-off caught-in-the-throat blue makes it even harder to breathe) in your attempt to keep me from shutting down is backfiring. Heaven above, it's your worst nightmare and please, please wake up.

I want sad, I want soft, I want melancholy shot into my veins until I'm so far underground that there isn't a drug that can make me fly again; but you just keep stapling my wings back on, because to burn them would mean to lose yours, too. Left with these shining opportunities, what am I to do? It's so much easier this way, for everyone- I take flight and come back days later, and still galaxies away, euphoric in my current lack of past. (It's so easy to deny memories when you're running across your own palm, admiring the crevices.)

I say goodnight and watch you ignore my dilated pupils (not like you'd be able to teach them anything anyway), and head up to my room (my trophy hall of stereotypical nonconformity where cigarettes, pills, and wads of twenties line my bed frame) to write a few songs about denying a lie; you'll hear them on your radio (pretending you don't know the tune) and find an excuse to come upstairs and test the smoke detector.

It went off four times last night (tends to happen when someone lounges beneath it and goes through two packs of contraband Marlboros they paid for with ten minutes on somebody's bed) but you were so deep in your chipped-polish perfection that it didn't even disturb your oh-so-falsified relaxation.

Giving it up? No, I'm not out to get you to ship me off to some hospital, another prison where they'll break me down and call me cured… I just want you to acknowledge me (like the motherfucking life I still have), let me know it wasn't a dream. Break the door down (white on my side, harvest gold on yours because we both have to have our color schemes) and let it out, because this brand of punishment falls under torture, and I hear they outlawed that quite some time ago.

Let me know it wasn't a dream so I can feel good about the wind beneath my wings.