Why It Scares Me

At times I've shouted out unprovoked, at the world and you,

Just to see if the people around me react.

Sometimes I think they're all acting,

At times I'm scared that I'm acting too. Like,

My movements or stage directions?

Was that a change in topic or a beat in a scene?

Have I been taking my emotional cues from a script I wrote at sixteen?

Maybe I just think about it all so much

That that the fear stays close to all the ghosts I've touched.

Makes me question

Was it love or just lust?

Caked in blood or old rust?

I don't know.

Don't we remember all the moments we remember the best

Framed in poems and in pictures, sang aloud in refrains?

Does this cycle of pain and disdain for the past

Not work exactly the same?

Maybe it's just as much about what comes our way as it is about how we react.

Just as much about the things that we've still got as it is about the things we lack.

I know we won't always keep around all we feel we need-

some are fading in frames, some were born to leave-

But if we're still here, and we still breathe,

I guess we've still got time to figure it out,

To know what to do,

To know how to feel,

Know the things that I've been making up inside my head, and

To know what's real.

I want to believe that the way I am is just the way things go.

For the things that came, not the things I chose

to come.

I want to know if I had any control.

I want to know if it'd comfort me.

And if my heart just stops, pack my memories in it-

I want to know all the love I've got.

And if my heart just stops, keep me alive for a minute-

I want to know if a curtain drops.