Rambling

Go on now and

tell yourself it’s what you need that

you just enjoy time to yourself your

autonomy is important and

it’s nothing i’ve done or

maybe it’s everything I’ve done and don’t

and will and might and should and won’t.

I can’t blame you but

if I ask for the same it’s a fight, a big

struggle of who-loves-who less and

who-needs-who more and 

that I just don’t do enough, I’m not enough, I’m

too much and just enough but

you can’t decide who I am and what I am

to you on any given day, just

a placeholder in the kitchen by the stove or

a paycheck on a long weekend and maybe

a case of beer on a Tuesday cause you’re

looking for a fight but

you never needed a reason to hate me

anyway, did you?

So go on now and

paddle off into your lonely sunset with your pole

and your drink and your worm. I’ll be here

holding it all together and making sure

everyone eats, and the lights stay on and the

water dish is full, the kid’s not all alone. I do that,

but you’re not concerned with what I do, it’s what

I don’t; it’s always what I don’t and who I’m not and

I can’t be her, that mannequin from the 20s that waits

on you, if you can’t be the man with the cigar that

wears the suit and kisses my cheek with a strong arm

around my waist when he gets home from work. It can’t be

both ways if you’re the only one in our way, but we

can’t have that, can’t acknowledge

that maybe it’s you too, and I’m not the only one who

didn’t live up to what could have been realistic but it’s not

cause you won’t

fucking try to be a good man for anyone unless

there’s a post, or a camera, or something’s broken, or

maybe just anyone but me around.