Pretend

Because.
I’ve been hearing all the times someone has asked either of us “how did you end up with him/her?” with that puzzled tone. Their voices are chasing the answers around in my head.

Examining the places you/me is we and the places we is I.

Holding still waiting, watching my body as it’s revealed in your gaze, out from under the various appropriate costumes for the roles I play for you/me, seeing your shock at my/your nudity reflected in your/my eyes when I flash my true form unexpectedly. I’ve been chasing you/me out of rooms with words and pondering why you/me running doesn’t feel more unexpected. I’ve been wondering why the hurt feels so old/again.

The way I pretend I don’t know.

if you’re actually pretending. I don’t know if it’s pretend if you never take off the costume. I don’t know why I can’t pretend better. I don’t know if it has to be pretend. I don’t know why I dressed you/me up.

All the ways we’re wrong for each other are exactly the ways we work. Not work. Function. Stay. Pretend.

And it’s Buddha Mama’s frying pan to my head.

I picked you.

I chose you.

Not in spite of.

Because.

The ways your fucked up layer over my mine. The way your messed up blankets my messed up. The way I can bang against your wall all day and never have to explain my own. The way I won’t speak and you can’t listen. The way I can’t give and you won’t take. The way I hide and you can’t see.

The way you picked me.

The way you chose me.

Not in spite of.

Because.

The way I don’t know I pretend.



July 12, 2009