Projections

Honestly, I wish I could see you.
Not in the sense of the real you, heavens no.
I want to see the you that suffers without me.
That needs me.
That pines for and bleeds for me.
I want to see your life at it’s worst
Broken and cursed
Because I am gone.

I wish I had made that kind of mark
To make you feel like you couldn’t go on.
But the evidence is against me
And you are against me.
Sometimes it feels like the whole world is against me
Though I know it isn’t true.

I like to indulge myself in anti-me fantasies
Where I rise above the disapproval of all
And my numerous hardships
And I don’t need your lips
Or your smile
Or your face
To do so.

But the facts prove else wise
I’m from the upper-middle class
Of New Jersey, of all places.
What doors are closed to me?
Besides yours, of course.
Always yours.

So when I say that I wish I could see you,
What I mean is that I wish that we could walk on rainbows
And grow roses with solid gold thorns
And need only a horn to summon all the happiness in the world.
That when cut we bleed nothing but pearls
That faces and places have some kind of real basis
As opposed to some illusion we project on life.
I project on life.
I’m not sure if you do this kind of stuff too.

But I do.
And so,
When I see you,
If I see you,
It won’t really be you.
It will be the character I wish you were
In the play that I wrote
In my mind
Where two people actually fall in love
Instead of just acting.