Munitioned Selves

Munitioned Selves

Reflecting on my own complicity I try,
To answer the unthinkable question of when
"I love you" became just words
As automatic as remembering to breathe.
Like any other exhaled breath we uttered.

I opened that box and found inside postmodern concepts and abstract art.
And on that day of my uncertainty, you,
One moment speaking those mechanical three words.  Imploring me
Of their earnestness
And yet did storm off unwilling to listen to my answer.
Proving bitterly that it was the very shell that you loved;
That constructed home of "relationship" I helped build.
Not the person,
The identity you could not contain within those cold and clammy bars.

I stood by, laboured pleasantly laying bricks.
Building my own cell around me, I was happy.
That is not a lie.
But Alice in her house, I grew so suddenly
Until it was all leg and arm and foot. My very breath
Struggling to break out.

And loosening each lace on that corset, that feminine constraint you so loved,
I emerged,
Breaking free from the fettered identity to explore a less inhibited shape.
Terrified, as it became clear you resented all I had become.  
Each new branch I extended grew in you new and unexpected roots of distrust.
Till finally you broke,
Crying, wounded and angry at what you assumed I was.

You couldn't let go of that shed skin of my former self.
That which I could not fit into even had I tried.
2 am messages piling up, an onslaught,
Emotional terrorism during our agreed armistice.
Every few days another violation of the peace treaty as you demanded
An answer that I cruelly could not so easily give.

I needed to be sure, to avoid regrets.
I failed; it was inescapable perhaps to avoid hurting you.
Backed into a corner with a choice of which wire to cut
I chose that already severed bond between us.

I'm sorry; I value my arms and legs too much.
And most of all my heart, it would have been the first to go.

Paper is my drug and here I pour out my poison,
An ugly breath of smoke and mirrors to try to forget
All these unsaid things that have for far too long simmered, a ticking bomb below the surface.
It is time to diffuse it.