Purgatory

It is like bittersweet chocolate.
No... that isn't right.
There is no chocolate.
There is just bittersweet.

Bitter
Watching them love you
and watching you love them
while loving me.

Sweet
The times we laugh together
and let go of all the bad
to be what we're best at: friends

The two should never have been sewn together.
Bitter is the opposite of sweet.
It is a glorious oxymoron
that we climb into each day

Like a beautiful suit.
We carefully check the cuffs
and the collar
then pick up our briefcase
and close the door behind us.

"I'm sorry!" you plead to me.
"I didn't know he felt this way!"
And I know you tell the truth.
And I can never stay mad.

Nor can I stay mad at the people who fall in love with you.
Because you deserve to be loved.
And it's right that everyone knows it.
And it's unfair of me to ask you to stop being yourself.

So what is left then?
Who can I point my finger at
and say "Yes, this is all your fault"?

God?
I doubt it.
Though it would be a lot easier
To blame that faceless name.

Fate?
Also doubtful.
As I don't think the "grand design"
has much to do with my love life.

Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, or Vogue?
For telling everyone
That there is only one body type that is sexy:
Skinny?

No.
Because even while I could thrust forward their stereotype
In my own grand defense
and gasp and pound and stare the jury in the eye
while giving my closing argument...
it isn't right.
I would be pleading innocent
when it is really I who is guilty.

I am the one who cannot keep people loving me.
I am the one who lets them gaze upon you
and see in you everything that is not in me.
I push them toward you,
knowing that they'll take the bait
(because what tempting bait you are.)

I grab the heartbreak
and tuck it under
the breast of my beautiful suit
of an oxymoron.
I gaze at the jury
with my head held high
and in a voice that will be my pride and joy
for not betraying my pain,
I announce myself
"Guilty."