cowboy

if you do not see the signs, you must be falling asleep. all the letters i read are about the sad thing that is us, twisting and pulling a rope around my chest as a bull that struggles to unman itself or a dog scratching at its fleas. in melancholy lines i read the hurt in your eyes and i feel even more the helpless watching i am doing in this bad movie. we are strangers back again, thinking we know each other too well that there is nothing new to know and contempt is all there is to reach for. you are struggling too much to be the strapping cowboy that you are not and i douse your ego every time for saying so. and you never fail to bring me my comeuppance by hitting on every nerve you think hurts the most, but of course i am more dynamic than you think. i bury my aces beneath thorny roses and you have not thought to dig, perhaps dreading the dirt under your nails or the scratches to your flesh. what you will find is always worth the pain, i guess, but you are too afraid of hurt and would rather drown yourself in a golden stupor with ye old faithful friends. why is it that you believe you have given a world of effort when you haven't even hit the heart of what it is that keeps me at your side? the clock hasn't struck twelve and you are ready to trade in your guns so that you can pursue the craven life you feel safer off living. you have not even seduced my mind and yet you believe you have earned the right to keep your hat on while you follow the button trails to my breasts. even though you keep me on the edge of breathlessness, i am more inclined to kiss a man with a purple eye and bruised lips. you are more beautiful than any, but i have other plans than become a mother to someone who shuddered between my legs and thought of his horse.