You know too many of my secrets,
Too many times you’ve seen me fall;
Your eyes keep track of every weakness
I try to hide under cold armor from the world;
/
You love about me things which aren’t
Deserving of more than contempt;
You like the smiles, the tears, the frowns that
I hate – just like most other features of my self;
/
My eccentricities don’t scare you,
My doubts don’t make you doubt your choice
To be with someone ever-absent,
Who’s all her own and won’t be yours;
/
And in your hands my ill-kept secrets
Are deadly weapons, which you use
When with those hands you bend and break me,
And through your mouth spit out abuse
/
You love about me all that’s ugly
Because those spots aren’t hard to hit;
Against my own self-hate defenseless,
I stay; for who will feed your anger if I leave?
/
My eccentricities don’t scare you –
They, too are targets for your blows,
But this unyielding something in me
Your fists can’t reach, is still my own;
/
It is the pride that I was born with,
Which some like you would take away;
It is the courage to be smiling, crying, frowning
With a bruised face, day after day;
/
It is the hope, too, that one morning
I would wake up and wouldn’t need
Somebody by my side, destroying
My body – to distracts me from the pain under my skin