Words That We Couldn't Say

I'm oscillating
flipping between
shimmering hope and gloomy despair
rage and ecstacy
between overwhelmed and bored
like some wretched light switch

Is it bad that suddenly I can't tell
if you're a really good therapist
or just a really mean man?
Is what I feel I need
and what I really need
never
the same?
I trust you but you tell me that there are no easy answers.
And I feel as trapped as when I first came to see you,
as time goes by.

No more wandering away from my reality
Here it is:
cold, thick, and plain.
Overwhelmingly so.
No more commandeering inspiration
No more tripping through fantasies of competence
Here I am
again.
Sober.
Warm and frightened.
Unimpressive.
insignificant.
No escape.
I can't take it.

My brother is a sucess
but you don't care about that stuff
because he puts my senses on alert
for disapproval eminent.

If your own sister cringes before you
what kind of brother have you been?

I'm defective, I protest.
And he never meant any of it.
Which is why I laugh wearily at my brother's misguided advice,
Even though I know he may be right.

And you.
How can you not care about
prestige, honor, and glory, or at very least
unconditioned happiness?

And what did you mean when you said
that if you're very lucky
you can look forward to going hiking on the weekend?
Did you mean yourself, or all of us?

Because if sucess isn't all its cracked up to be,
if fighting for it consumes most of our lives,
what, pray tell,
is the point?

Lower your expectations.
Isn't that the same as having no hope?

Our relationship is longer than any I have had with therapists before you.
And what have I got to show for it?
A little hope, but not much.
You make me feel like crap, all in the name of
"personal growth."

And for the life of me I can't figure out if you're a sadist or a philanthropist,
pointing out all those things I've tried so hard to ignore.
But for all the money I've paid you so far, and all the money I'll pay you to be there
when I fall...
you'll promise me its worth it.
And how much lower can I go? Is a question I dare not ask.

You scoop me off the ground and tell me to keep on running
toward a future that may not even be worth the effort.
Tick, tock... you mock.
And I hate you and adore you all at once.
You're so much like the one who I once confided in, in those late nights of a teenager's lonely life
and like him, I'd like to punch you in the mouth.

Agression, you say, like a snake in the grass,
like air, its always there.
But I hold my tongue and my fist,
small damage they could do against you.
For the life of me I don't know what to do.

Trust me, you say,
but I've seen so much coldness in this world
disguised and mixed with kindness enough to confuse even the keenest of us.

And I am not that smart. I'm really not,
though I've denied that fact too.
You don't know me, I want to say, through teeth clenched like a steel trap,
but your confidence ensnares me.
And so I'll come in again for
yet another
psychic beating.
All I ask is:
Please have mercy.