EITHER/OR

For S.K.--the Sadness King

Either/

It wasn't me
you hurt
up there
in Toronto.
You didn't hurt
my frame grown
fat and old
and slow; no,
you didn't.
You hurt
those pictures
you sent back
those treasures
of me young,
when I still smiled
for a camera shot
and thought magic thoughts
of my cowboy and Indian adventurers
and believed in all those stupid lies
we were told about love and goodness
and honesty and the world and the people are good and you feel safe
and there are rewards and feelings will be acknowledged and all that dumb shit
that every half-ass kid thinks is true and
that eventually were turned on its head but so what? some of us still carry them
because we still carry hearts and brains and memory and mercy and mom and dad
before we knew they were all so fucked up and crazy and so we still smiled and thought--
tomorrow is gonna be better.
We were like little puppies
then
and only wanted to be loved
like a puppy does.
It's that Savage
you killed
(again

Your eyes took me in,
but was stopped
by your heart
before I was even allowed
to enter.
Coming to you
I thought
I was on the journey
I always wanted to make
but was afraid to:
trusting someone enough
to love
their ugly beauty;
a journey perhaps undeserved
for what I've done
but for whatever reason
was now here despite all the stop signs
I ran through.
And when I saw you
looking at me there
on your porch
I felt a shiver
go through me
before I knew
I was cold.
We were not in New York.
We were in your home.
You could not leave; it was you now
who was trapped.
It was you
who could not scream
in joy and desire and sexuality
and have orgasms
so close to your son's room
and your ex-husband's lair;
and it was you, so close
to the bones of your birth
who still rubbed the bleached boned death
into your sides at every turning.
Oh, you tried.
Yes you did.
You flailed and fought
and tried to usher out
the meanness and revenge,
but failed. So weak
to the sticky bonds of history.
It's always difficult to come
face to face
with yourself. And, so, after a year
of asking me to come to where you live,
I was there and there
was no place to be.
A big flashing neon sign you shown:
NO VACANCY

/Or...

you were just afraid.
Not autistic; not that stupid description:
bi-polar. Just plain scared shitless.
You became the terrified girl
who saw a reality of love
waiting to enter
a house that catered
to pain
and missed chances
and it became all too much
to take in.
Simple, really:
There's no room in here
for that kind of love.
A shame, really:

You remain a poor,
lost little girl,
caught in your own net
not of your making,
while I still search
to be found.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014