This Much Red

She died when the dust blew from her hands the last time
But I’m still here across the way
It’s just the odds have gotten steeper
And maybe my smirk line’s grown a little deeper
But I won’t respond to this by rushing
Headlong into obsolescence
I’m keeping my metaphorical collar popped
Thank you very much
I've been told I invent little games
And see how long I can keep them up

He likes it when I call him a selfish boy
Lay into him with instructions
It’s a game you need safety to play
Trust to inflict
A play you can’t act in without childish frustration
And quivering bottom lip

The parenting maxims tacked up
Under his mama’s cabinet
Warn against everything she later did wrong
And the fallout from this is a gift
Laid at my doorstep

He’s a child hearing the fight in the kitchen
Swell out of control
Trying to stroke it till it heals
But he can’t contain me
No he can’t assuage me
And his hand in the small of my back
Will only enrage me

He calls me out for bold disclosures
About who I did what with
He says “Why would you tell me that”
And it makes me reflect on why I’d do it
Something about preserving my separateness
And saying "This is who I was before you
And I’d still exist without you
And I’ll never be your accoutrement
No matter what this culture wants"
I can’t accept my connection to these people
Was completely arbitrary
So I keep a piece of them with me
Every now and then in the night
I remember their warm humanity
Dream them into something they were not

She wants me to want what she wants:
The buxom still life
The rich brushstroke
But I’m still a wayward
Repulsed by labels
I thought I might change with the milk of his kindness
But I fight for myself all the more
In the creeping warmth of this love

When the middle of the song falls in
Like a house on its own dark heart
I crawl across the carpet
Curling fists into the pile
Looking up at him for a reaction
Passion
But he balances me out
He says, “I can’t act like that”
And one of my feet threatens the door
Until I remember his temperance
Is the thing I need the most