Paralyzed

It’s always the same.
There’s no one until there’s someone.
You appear like Napoleon, 1799, out of nowhere.
Staging coups and exiling her better senses
with good-guy tales of misfortune,
like chocolate dipped delicacies,
always ending in the same
but that’s nothing compared to
what you’ve been through
script.

Her father taught her;
when she was just a top-knot,
to never trust explicitly.
It’s not lost on her that sometimes
beneath a candy-coated exterior
lies a dark and bitter center,
but longing never met a truth it couldn’t erode.

Now your heart is beating in her chest,
and what she doesn’t know
is just how deep your malice grows.
How you move from one forever-love to another
using their affection like a needle and spoon,
to satiate the prosthetic spirit within your shell.

Tell me; was it a game for you?
Did you eeny, meeny, miney, moe?
Or just mark your prey by the wheels on her chair?
You’re like the clown in a dunk tank
crying “Virgin mobile, here! Virgin mobile!” all the way down.
You’re the carnie whose joints are never quite rigged,
just bent bottles and tilted tables,
tipping odds in your favor.

Now her tears trace their tracks,
as you’re off projecting new-life comfort,
flaunting your glamour shots debutante,
hoping the pain you inflict
will, somehow, finally break her.

But what are you?
Compared to phantom limbs and catheter tubes?
What are you, compared to walking memories
swimming through nightmare undertow?
What are you, really, in the grand scheme of all things,
compared to the permanent loss of maternity?

Answer: Nothing.

Just one more little boy paralyzed,
watching her walk away.