Silence Please by Lady Dalia

I can’t hear you.  I hurt.  I see your mouth moving but the words don’t make sense.

Do you ever really think of me?  Before you open your mouth, that is, or decide not to do something or simply forget because you can’t be bothered to remember.  Or is it you with me and how you’d like it to be that clouds your eyes.  How you’d like me to be.  That me you day dream of and hold on a very high, yet fragile pedestal.

I walk a careful line.  Friend and confidant, leader and teacher.  Sometimes I even fall.  I am not good at being the character you write for sitcoms where all problems are resolved in 24 TV minutes.  I have laundry and my dishes pile up some days.  I fear.  I laugh.  I want.  I need.  I could take what I needed but it is so much more when you give it yourself, of yourself.

You take like a needy child though I am not your mother.  And I hesitatingly admit, will nurture.  I invest too.  In us, but mainly you.  I hold a mirror to you and show you your strengths, I look ahead and show you the way.  I wait for you to stumble and tell you it’s ok.

Did you know I cared in every exasperated sigh, every angry moment,  every lonely tear?  The loneliness that comes from walking two steps ahead of you.  It should be a dance, this racing ahead, you and I, seeking to anticipate and give, ask and understand, share and feel.  The problem is I had the radio on and you were off doing other things.

Can I tell you a secret?  I cannot protect you from yourself.  I cannot open your heart.  I cannot expand your vision.  I cannot teach you right from wrong.  I cannot teach you how to be my friend.  I cannot make you feel what I feel and I am lost in this dysfunction.

I’m sorry.  I am sorry because when you fail, it feels like I fail us and when I fail us then I fail myself and it makes me so angry, I want to take everything and tear it to shreds and find oblivion.

It’s not ok and I am not going to pretend so.  I cannot accept your apology because you do not understand.  So do not apologize, just sit still and be silent. I can’t console you in this. I refuse to.

This is it.  Just this being apart.  If you grant me this, without pushing, grasping or demanding, I may, one day, be able to hear you again.