Story of My Life

She says, “Hold me,” and I hold her,
and her arms wrap around me like tentacles,
like the coils of a python, and I can’t breathe.

She is crying, and I have no mercy,
can’t summon the mildest twinge of sympathy.
Is she really upset?

A sad person doesn’t squeeze and threaten;
a sad person doesn’t run to my arms
or call me at half past midnight.

She is crying, and I have no mercy,
unable to believe that this is anything but a stunt,
with no faith in anything but the chime of history.

I cannot breathe. I cannot love her.
She runs her fingers over my skin,
looking for an entrance to my self,

looking for a way in so she can insert her feelers,
suck the energy from my soul,
tear my self-respect from me in tiny, precise pulls.

I have no mercy. This is why I hate people;
this is why I fear promises.
They are cages; they are chains.

But how can I turn a suffering person away?
I am impelled to caress her, impelled to say comforting words,
to rape myself like this every time she comes to me.

I mustn’t turn away when she pets my hair.
I mustn’t close my eyes briefly in pain when she tells me
she’ll cure me of my fear of commitment.

I don’t run away, but I have no mercy;
I simply grow colder and colder
and pray she will cease to need me.