Looking for a Worthy Adversary

I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary
someone I can battle to the death with
because it can’t be about love, you see
love can’t exist on the terms I demand
it’s never that pure

I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary
and so I slither up to you like a snake
as you sit there at the corner
of the bar drinking your gin and tonics
and I tempt you with a golden apple

but all I was offering you
was fruit from the tree of knowledge

I didn’t know how willing you were
to take from that tree
I’m not used to that, you know

Did you know you’d need to come back for more?
Did you know what you were getting into?

well, I didn’t know you’d have
a thing or two to each me too

and did I know I’d need to come back for more?
Did I know what I was getting into?

because as I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary
all this time I’ve been playing a part
an actress on a stage, spouting the lines on cue
and that role was getting tiresome
but those stage lights still came on night after night
and I still had to play my part
until on my night off I saw your performance
at the theatre down the street
and you know, your protagonist
was doing what I was doing
right down to faking it with people who don’t matter
right down to going home and still feeling empty

and you know, I liked to see
that boiling emotion underneath
that no one else could see
because only I had the knowledge to know
what that emotion really means

and you know, I’m beginning to wonder
if we can get together
and write our own play

it would be a masterful performance, you know
and as that curtain would close we’d hold each other’s hands
and walk off the stage
and the audience would know that there is a happy ending

and now when I walk out on to the set
and there you stand, in front, stage left
I wait for my cue to make my move
none of the rest of the scene matters to me, you know

maybe they’d like our little play, maybe they wouldn’t
who really cares

because even though I came to you
and tempted you
you now tempt me and tease me and torment me
and tell me everything I was too afraid to believe
and show me the knowledge that always escaped me

and when you talk you reach your hand into my brain
and pull out my thoughts and shove them into your mouth
and spit them back at me

and instead of filling me with terror
it fills me with joy

I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary
and maybe you are much more than that

I’ve heard the words you say to me before
I’ve said them to myself many times
but why do they sound so much better
coming from you?

I had been looking for a worth adversary
someone I could lock horns with
but now I’m no longer locking horns

now it seems I don’t have to fight the battle alone
now it seems that there’s no battle to fight
we know what all the lines from our play really mean
and now we’re performing for no one
now we’re just ourselves
and now there’s just understanding
I don’t even have to speak

and now every day is Valentine’s Day
and now it’s like candy and flowers and springtime
and hearts and cupids and sunshine
and you know it’s scary
these cliches are actually beginning to make sense

I guess that’s what the tree of knowledge does to you

so this is what has been going on in my mind
and now I’ve just spilled my guts
and now I’m just a puddle on the floor

but now my performance of a lifetime is made
I stand here like a statue
and wait for my applause

and as I wait for the reviews
on the performance I was made for
I know what they’re all going to say
and none of that matters anymore

because I know what you are going to say
because it’s everything that I want to say

because now it’s time
for you to take my thoughts again
and shove them into your mouth again
and spit them back at me again

and now I wait for you to come on stage again
for our next wonderful performance
where we have our happy ending
where you tell me what I already know

OEUVRE

Scars Publications and Design
Editor@scars.tv
http://scars.tv

in conjunction with Penny Dreadful Press
and assistance from Freedom & Strength Foundation, Troy Press, Hawthorne Press & Dried Roses Press

first edition
printed in the United States of America

copyright @ 2004 Scars Publications and Design
writings @ 1979-2004 Janet Kuypers
book design @ 1998-2004 Scars Publications and Design

    This book, as a whole, is fiction, and no correlation should be made between events in the book and events in real life. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

    Information about past books is available upon request through Scars Publications and Design. Materials from the literary magazines “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “Down in the Dirt” are available on line at http://scars.tv, as are .mp3 files, .ra files, .aif files, .au files, .wav files .mov and mpeg files of Kuypers, both reading her work and singing with three sets of musicians.

    Oeuvre is published through Scars Publications and Design, whose publisher is a member/minister through the Universal Life Church. Scars Publications and Design, the logo and associated graphics @ 1979 - 2004. All rights reserved. Kuypers and Scars Publications and Design welcome your comments, tips, compliments or complaints. Direct all comments and suggestions to the e-mail addresses listed above.

    The definition of oeuvre (the works of a writer, painter, or the like, taken as a whole) is from the Websters Unabridged 2001 Dictionary.