Mentally Addicted

The words tell everyone else
everything that I remember
about the way the night
dragged me toward madness,
while anyone paying attention
would've seen my mind fly away.

(no one was paying attention)

In the driving rain,
see the house up the hill,
see the trees and bushes,
smell the white lilacs.
Come back here with me,
and see why I needed you.

(memories cannot be erased)

See the mother trample me
for the sake of short-term relief.
See the absence of others
who wished I'd not been born.
See the man that plucked out
a precious part of me too early.

(ever reliving this childhood in anger)

But to the trees, I sang
of times when these things
would no longer be true.
I held up my hands,
and you seemed so close.
You seemed real to me.

(I was moreso the optimist then)

I was wanted, in my head,
if nowhere else, demanded,
for the strength of who I was,
not needed for what I could
sacrifice to everyone else.
You may have existed to me
only for the sake of agony,
but in my mind, you loved me.

(split in two, but you may be me)

A quiet uncertainty pervades
all the things I ever say to you.
The pendulum of my mind
repeats the path between
utter belief and absolute despair.
I am crushed as hard as elated
inflated, berated, sensated,
and every feeling I created.

(the clues outweigh the notes)

You've dismissed what
I exposed with such ease,
and my cheeks flush to know
this may only be to save us
the privacy we both require
for this connection to flourish
and endure under the watchful
eyes of those who cannot
comprehend the need
that urges me to continue,
to go on, to live in your shadow.

(nothing has stopped me yet)

I live it out to the end
of every day that grinds
into me reminders of you
through the winding, crushing
demanding days and nights
when I only wish to be free.

(I will never be free)

Like the succulent expiring breath
of a drug that draws me into a ring
of self-destructive memories,
of self-indulgent fantasies,
where I am no longer aware
of reality and dream.
I cannot stop going back to it.

(if you are me, be just me)