These Things We Keep at Distance or Why Should They Be Found

These Things we Keep at Distance or Why Should They Be Found

Why should I have to pay
for things that are not found
why should I have to keep these burdens
if they only weigh me down

I thought that I had left them
but these things that I have told
in others they are staying
like a bad outdated cold

They stay when they have left me
and even when I ran
but these people keep reminding me
of something

And I want to take these things I've done
and push them down out out
and take them to the places
where these things are never found

Why do I have to keep them
or are they keeping me
am I sitting and waiting for that something?

And I want to let them go but people keep on saying no
they say they have to keep them to remind me where to go

But why should I remember
when remember is all I do?
You think it's your commitment
but your commitment is to you

When these choices haunt me plenty
why do you hang around
with the snide remarks
and hurt words come out

But should I just accept them
and change into all I am to you
because the things I wish to leave
are the only things to you.

And I want to start a new life
from the things I'll leave behind
I know that it is tricky
but it's my way that I'll find.

So I'll keep them on a thin leash
behind me they shall tread
and one day when I let them go
you'll have to accept them

For these things are never gone
although I say now that they are
and we pretend and leave them
then they'll leave me.

-Matthew Koutzun

I Scattered These Eggshells (A Pro-fession in Prose)

I Scattered These Eggshells (A Pro-fession in Prose)

All at once came the time it happened. I, not holding back, told you it all. Told you you were wrong for all you had done for me, even though I could have just let it slide. Confused I continued on, pressing forward, ignorant to hear any form of reason. I wanted to see sides: my side and yours- as opposite. Me as good and you as wrong, though as we continue the line blurs each day.

I went so far to continue. To push on, to continue feeling something, anything, that would help me feel on top, above what had happened and give me leverage to any day these things would come back to haunt me. This haunts me, the field I've tossed you in full of bombs and bombardments of defense.

So crazy I was, you take no chances now in your speech with me. The invisible verbal bombs could take your life, or another 15 minutes of it, if you were to step out of line. You, frozen, in the middle of a football field. Us at either ends: good or wrong, wrong or good.

I scattered them, these eggshells, and I realize now that they don't hurt you, they protect you from me. They keep you at a distance, the one I want you at, but the one I don't want you at for long.

-Matthew Koutzun