lu

they’re literally me

i saw one of your angels today, bloody and bruised and battered, slumped over the hood of a ‘79 chevy truck. do you not love him? he was crying for you. oh, but a mother’s love is not unconditional—a father’s love is like a hurricane. do you not love me? all i wanted was to be good enough. i’m dancing on glass and fingering the trigger these days, these days, these days. my world is burning outside these dirty windows. my car kicks into overdrive on the way home, five thousand rpms, danger zone. it’s like it knows home is no home at all, panicking like i do when the driveway fades into view. i got sick this morning. why don’t you pick up when i ring heaven’s landline? i saw another one of your angels last week, head down outside the quik mart in dixiana, tired eyes and even tireder wings. do you not love us? have mercy on the sinners. it’s all we’ve got left. god, i saw your only son, dead and bleeding out on the cross. do you not love any of us? a family’s love is like cancer, settling deep inside until you can’t tell where you start and it ends. it never lets go. i’m on my knees, please, just let me be good enough. why am i not good enough? is it not enough to bleed and to cry and to scream and to abstain? the city lights are calling. pick up the phone.

Virginia Woolf, from The Waves

And we, too, had a relationship— Tight wires between us, Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring Sliding shut on some quick thing, The constriction killing me also.