I have this urge to split my thoughts,
To sort, label and shade every feeling
I know it says a lot about me
It's too controlled, planned
and suspiciously revealing.
Every thought sits in a labeled file
Every memory sealed tight,
Every restless fear pushed to the back
To keep it out of sight
Every story rests comfortably in it's own book,
Every painting in its designated frame,
Every coat hangs on its numbered hook,
No wondering at all.
The world should keep its careful shape,
It's people should stay still,
A face should not become a mask,
That time can bed at will.
No lover swearing they will stay,
Should just dissolve into the air,
A vow once carved out in ink,
Should stay exactly there.
Friends I knew in childhood streets,
Should stay where they began-
Like landmarks fixed and bound to the map,
Not drifting because they can.
The children I once sat beside
In rows of wooden chairs,
Should live forever in those halls,
Not greet me unaware.
The smiling ones should stay alight,
No brightness from them should ever fall,
The cheerful should not learn the dark
That waits to greet us all.
But my mind is an archive
That trembles deep into the night
The draws begin to slide apart,
The labels lose their bite.
Folders tear
Records fade
The cheerful order slips
Old grief leaks through the brittle seams
Of once secure transcripts.
My shelves collapse
My papers fall
My system comes undone.
For feelings are unruly things
That scatter when they run
And the world feels wildly broken
When your mind demands control
But I know it was you.
You who rattled all my careful locks,
Who sunk your fingers in my spine
You loosened every careful thought,
Every opinion and belief that I called mine
Darkness poured through my every fracture,
As you made me crawl
through the chaos I had cast,
yours to hold,
yours to last.