There's a hole in the middle of you,
and any love will do to fill it.
Any love will do,
though you will never be content
with the quantity, the quality,
the veracity of affection.
The scales will never balance,
your expectations always framed
by what you think you deserve,
more or less or nothing at all.
You will be standing in places
as dark outside as you are within,
convinced of the righteousness
of your failure to hope,
where nothing really matters
if nothing is really real.
All the while, the truth will
be the same truth it has always been.
You cannot fix yourself this way
because there is no way to be fixed.
There's only the shouldering
of burden, the carrying on.

06/01/2011

Author's Note: He was sober for two years this time, but then, yesterday, he was not. And the way I feel now is almost physical, it's so bad. Because no matter what happens, I love him. There is nothing he can do to himself to make me not love him. I wish that it meant something. That my love would make him love himself better. It doesn't. Nothing does. Anyway, one of his favorite songs is "For Real" by Okkervil River. "I want to know this time if you're really finally mine. I need to know that you're not lying, so I want to see you tried. And I don't want to hear you say it shouldn't really be this way 'cause I like this way just fine."

Posted on 06/02/2011
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