Just When…

Just when I thought I couldn’t hurt any more, that my loneliness had reached some kind of divine perfection. All at once suddenly finding parts on my supposed heart that were unbroken.

And all the old defenses swing into play on the stage; “I just wanted to be alone anyway”, “you should have seen what he did to me”. Just like the others, a consolation prize, a friendship token.

I’m writing from way out in the woods. There is a logic to it, a settler’s logic softened by an illusory distance of genocide. I denied your advances. Did you even try to rouse me? Sharp words were never spoken.

And so I bounce undone and we perpetuate these patterns again.
You get hurt while I struggle to find my humanity, my own identity apart from the violence of my existence that is only overcome by my heathenry.

I wanted to be here for you, but I forgot I was me, lost in the lodge is a convenient metaphor, but no one else knew I came in here but you.
What did Leonard Cohen say? Many men are dying where you promised to be.

I’ll die in here forever, that’s of no real concern for me, but you’ve gained my blessing and from inside your mirrors I’ll mutter the mantras, benedictions of iterations of your names, benefactor of nothing, nobody, never-ever; me.