“What do you want?” She asks.

“What do you want?”

I want to avoid the question.

My answers contradict logic and progress

and each other.

They make no sense,

even to me,

and it would be all i could do to get them out of my mouth

without expelling all the conflicting emotions

along with my antithetic words.

In my mind, i beg to recuse myself,

but She will not allow it.

 

“What do you want?” She asks.

“What do you want?”

I want what i shouldn’t admit.

I want to be left alone,

to sleep and rest and fade into

oblivion.

Nothingness engulfing me like

the plushest blanket.

Sadness, worry, and fear,

leaving me with the last of my breath as

the universe swallows me

whole.

Not as death, but

rebirth.

 

“What do you want?” She asks.

“What do you want?”

I want what i cannot have.

The chance to go back in time

and fix mistakes.

Mend fences before they

fall to the ground.

Keep bridges from burning under the flames

of angry words.

Keep scars from forming

under the red-hot branding irons

of society’s moral cowboys and

my own putrid thoughts.

To stop it all before it begins.

 

“What do you want?” She asks.

“What do you want?”

I want what i am ashamed to admit,

embarrassed to say aloud.

The weakness of wanting,

needing,

to be loved.

No caveats, no limits.

No reminders of human

failures

or failings

or future expectations.

Pure and undiluted.

In spite it all.

In spite of me.

The type of agape, of caritas, of grace,

that has the loftiness of fairy wings,

and is about as likely to be

real.

 

“What do you want?” She asks.

“What do you want?”

I want everything and nothing.

I want to give up.

I want to give in.

I want to give ’em hell.

I want it all or

i want to throw it all in the air and

watch it fall to the ground.

Shattering into a thousand sparkling pieces,

each more beautiful than it was when

it was whole.

The stuff of children’s legends and

Hallmark cards.

Pure fantasy.

 

“What do you want?” She asks.

“What do you want?”

 

What do i want?

 

“I want, ” I reply.

“And it is more than i can bear.”