i made my lover mad today

17 october 1996

i made my lover mad today
i can't exactly blame her
i said i'd drive her to school
like she wanted me to
but i changed my mind
and didn't tell her why
i just acted like a little child
and said i don't need to get up
if i'm not driving you to school
she said okay
but didn't kiss me good-bye
and slammed her car door
so i know i pissed her off

i want to feel guilty
about not doing what
she wanted me to do
but i don't
not really
i feel guilty for upsetting her
feel bad about not explaining
my reasons for not going with her
feel like a slime
for knowing i have no reason
except it didn't feel right
and i didn't want to go

it's bad enough
i'll have to do it tomorrow
run all over a town
i hardly know
in a car
i hardly know how to drive
(in downtown traffic, that is)
i couldn't bear to do it
two days in a row
i couldn't see the point
in a dress rehearsal
either i can do it or i can't
driving the route today
is not going to change that fact

so why didn't i tell her this
instead of being lazy
and not getting out of bed?
maybe because she still
would have been mad anyway
she would have tried
to understand my reasons
but i still wouldn't have been
doing what she wanted

so much of my existance now
seems to be
not what she wants of me
did she expect that
once i was away from houma
that i'd be a whole new person?
ready to drive and work
and be an adult?
did i hope that, too?
well, guess what?
i'm just the same old dee
and i'm tired of trying to figure out
how to be
what the world thinks i should be
i'm tired of feeling like a piece of shit
because i don't work
and i'm too scared to want to

i could go back to houma
but i'd just want to kill myself there
i'm not far from that here, though
not because of suzy
not because of what she wants of me
there's a part of me
that wants it of me, too
i'm just not sure i have
any energy left
to try any more