Louise Spence

You can be complicit to these complacent desires, friend
you can have the best of every world if you'd like. All the people and the routes and all the grains of sand on the ocean floor
but you cannot buy forgiveness from those of whom you tread on the toes and claw at the arms.
Insensitivity is one thing but immorality is another; friendship takes work and having got thus far it's evident you know the motions the machines, we robots, should make to fall into our little heartfelt categories
so why
then
are you acting this way?
I know so much more than you think, I am the night owl in the trees, with the wide eyes and sensitive ears and I hear from the woodland that you're a liar, a traitor, a tinker, a tailor, a soldier, a spy
I know what you've done and you look me in the eyes every single day and don't say a word
I catch you watching and I wonder if it's guilt that flickers across your features before you look away
or don't you care, dear?
Is this all okay to you, a game to you, a play to you? Are we all actors in your minute microcosm of selfish desires and playthings in your fantasies?
I am sick
I am tired
I am guilty
an accomplice in a crime never committed
the Passion that's there to be doled out to everyone around has to be earned
and that's what I'm struggling with
Saying No
Stopping you from getting too close and breaking
down my barriers
you've made me insecure again