Iāve no thick skin for the opportunity of rejection,
no ruddied scars to sing the praises of a superior defeat
matched by brighter recovery.
I still pull myself quietly across the sanded deserts
of having been your daughter,
having been used for your happiness and yours alone.
I may forever walk the tenderloins
of great men suffering at the mercy of their self-esteem.
Long ago, I vowed to walk with my head held high,
my high fluent aspects bobbing along,
even as I crawled,
even as I searched for water.
I had once tried to seduce captors,
torturers,
the fat, lazy slobs of prison guards.
I had once closed my eyes to sleep peacefully under the reign
of other men
who loved impatiently
and thought deservedly.
Who delivered me from the stark, crisp, uncomplicated reality
of having been left behind,
not once,
twice,
but thrice.
In their arms, I found the words I needed to rest my ears upon
but still unmatched by intent,
by love,
by compromise.
Iāve not told him these realities,
embarrassed as I am.
Iāve learned now, this time here in Idaho,
I can no longer find the vast energy reserves to explain you to yourself
he to him, men to women,
the means by which you no longer make sense.
I no longer harbor the capacity to watch you waver on loving me,
or forgetting me.
And yet, still, so easily do I fall in vainly,
wishing for a happy ending to prove the past untrue,
anomaly,
exception to the rule of happily.
Still, stand I, looking for re-purpose,
looking for presupposition,
for the ways to prove I am loved by more than just you.
