The first of three poems about the aftermath of my best friend's harshly worded LJ entry that (pathetically) I don't even know for sure was about me.

#198. "The Moon and Me" (09.27.2007)
if it was an easy thing
to change who you are
then we would all be perfect,
and to tell me
to change who i am
is like telling the moon
to stop spinning around us
all the damn time already,
it's getting annoying.

i don't know what i expected,
i just wanted to explain
because i felt you deserved it,
and now you know.
if you don't like it, fine,
but don't tell me to just change
like i haven't already tried
fifteen thousand times before.

(i'm trying as we speak.)

and reading what you wrote,
i want to be grateful for it and use it;
use the anger and let it fuel me,
and i don't want to be who you think i am,
but i know that i am weaker than anyone,
and soon your words will lose their meaning
like all the self-hate and pain
that's been here too long to notice anymore.

if your words
led me to change,
to achieve that one thing
that i have wanted
all my life,
then it would be
the greatest gift,
but i know myself
all too well,
and i'm just too weak
to be that strong,
and changing that one thing
is like trying to run ten miles
when you've never run one,
it's just not possible,
and telling me to do it
doesn't make it any more possible,
no matter how much
you or i want it to be.

(if the moon could stop
i'm sure it would too.)

and strength cannot comprehend weakness;
you cannot comprehend that
not everything is possible,
when for you, it is.
and likewise i see the good people
working hard and defying their limits
and watch in awe,
and i see your life and i'm amazed,
because you truly are
everything i wish i could be,
but i haven't moved in five years,
and i already know (and now you do too)
that i'm pathetic and disgusting
and a waste of space,
and i would say sorry,
but you would just say
that i was fishing for acceptance
and dismiss me
even though all i wanted to say to you
is that i was wrong
and you deserved an apology,
and that doesn't have to mean
that i want anything in return.
it just has to mean that i'm sorry.

(if all you wanted to prove
is that you were better than me,
well, i knew that long ago.)

and maybe i am grateful
that you were willing
to be that harshly honest with me,
because it makes me ashamed,
and envigorates me,
and makes me feel
that maybe i can change,
even though i've felt that
too many times before
and been wrong every time,
but at the same time i'm sad
to know how truly low
your opinion of me is
(i always thought that it was me
who had the lowest opinion of myself)
and i wonder how you ever stayed my friend
when that was how you felt all this time,
and it makes me sick to think
that you're probably not the only one
who feels this way,
and i just never knew.

i'm glad you were honest,
because i've known too many people
who were content to let me remain ignorant,
let me agonize over why why why,
and even though i know now more than ever
that our friendship is over,
and that whatever friendly feelings you had for me
is now just a sharp bitter anger,
i will only ever have the best regard of you.

i love you.
i am forever sorry.

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