You…

Like prison sentences, end to end,
sixty millennia, all in all.
Here’s what I cannot understand –
how come I haven’t learned at all?
How come I’m as defenseless now
as I had been in that first life?
I ‘m buying words wholesale, although
I know they’re often lies.
You said “I want it all”, and I
had opened up and let you in,
although I knew you wouldn’t like
what you would find beneath my skin.
Although I knew I didn’t have
that indescribable, fragile, raw
ability to shift and bend
that men value in their females so.
I had believed – I did believe! –
have mercy, Gods, I have no words
to scream my pain – that you had lifted
the curse from me. That I was yours.
I gave it all! I gave it all!
Hysterical, stupid and naïve,
a child out of control.
A child drowning in grief.
I begged and prayed. I prayed and begged.
I have held back for so long!
My pride, my power, my intellect –
all of it – simply to belong.
You offered me such precious things
as hope, as love, a chance to live.
I swear, I gave you everything,
but this, which isn’t mine to give.
The thing that shapes my every step.
That I will not do. Can’t be done.
My loved ones, that I must protect.
The word I’ve given to my mom.
She is my mother. In this life,
this last lifecycle, she alone
gave herself so I would survive.
She saved my life. I cannot turn
on her, for anyone at all.
Not me. Not you. It is a debt
of decency etched in my soul.
A sacrifice I won’t forget.
And it is not about trust.
Or closed mindedness. Or spite.
It can’t be either her – or us.
It cannot be. It isn’t right.
Your vision, your passion, your dream
those things mean so much to me,
but i don’t know by what means
I can express it. How to be
simply supportive, simply there,
without wanting to learn more.
How to show that I care
without trying to explore
your thoughts and plans, without trying
to offer you skills I possess
in service to your cause. I’m tired.
I’m lost. I’m cornered. I’m depressed.
I didn’t mean or want to fail or
let you down. I want to be
your sword. But I cannot betray
those I love. Those who raised me.
It doesn’t matter that I’m shattered
into small shards, that all I touch
turns into ash. Here is what matters:
I failed you. You asked too much.
I know I promised, I know I vowed
that I would back you in this fight.
And I don’t know what to say now.
And I cannot tell wrong from right…