À TU, LA VICTIME
Aaron Wilder
I’m sorry, but I can’t be your guidance counselor anymore.
I’m sure that I’ll never see an end to it all.
An end to all your drama.
You’re always playing the central actress in tragedy after tragedy.
Stop acting like that correctional institute inmate from California.
You haven’t the slightest thing in common with her.
That is not where your bones will rest and neither of us will be your
mortician.
Just stop the screaming, the kicking, the tears of agony.
You’re not the victim this time.
We are not dating, so stop acting like it.
Stop trying to make your life worse than everyone else’s.
It’s getting old and I don’t care anymore, as restless as you’ve made me.
You swing your life by the sappy rock lyrics you dramatize.
You’re not one of those kids of that rock wife,
the ones who changed their names and ran away.
They remind me more of myself than you.
Of the two of us that ran away, I’m the only one who’s changed names.
You still state yours proudly, linking you to your family and past,
as I shudder when my old name is shouted or even whispered,
the one I left in Phoenix with the darkness of my old life.
It’s the one I thought I left behind with you,
but, you’ve chased me up here to plague me
with what I didn’t want to relive.
You followed me as I ran away as far as my wallet could bear,
Just to hear you play the victim all over again.
All you wonder is why I’ve changed.
Why haven’t you?
But none of that matters, nothing concerning me matters to you.
Your subconsciously self-inflicted crises
are all you expect my life to revolve around.
But I can’t communicate this to you in English.
This over-use of the subjunctive of emotion is all you’d hear.
My poor little victim,
how much will it cost for you to stop rocking my boat
already overturned in this unsteady sea?
Find some new life support,
this crutch can’t hold you up anymore.
Please find a way to be happy that doesn’t make me miserable.
Oh yeah, and stop making yourself the victim,
I don’t buy it.
