Learning How To Stay – TCK Poem

If This Love Is Supposed To Be Permanent (I Don’t Know How)
Elizabeth Hemp

No one ever taught me how to stay
And you’re getting too close
If this love
Is supposed to be permanent
I don’t know how to do that
And I must confess
You’re scaring me
This close is too close because
What if you leave now
And my world is shattered
As I have always known it will one day be?
Too much power, too much trust, too much
Potential for hurt and no one
Has ever accused me of being an optimist

I don’t know how to stay
This point is farther than
I’ve ever gone before
And I don’t know what comes next
Except leaving
Leaving has always been the abrupt cut off
For all of my history
And I have always hated it but if I’m honest
I don’t know how else to do it
This is the point in the story
Where the ending is supposed to go
And it’s aching nervously
In my bones
I don’t like not knowing what comes next

So there’s no reason to leave
Except every reason in the world
We’re too close, I’m too scared,
You can’t understand this fear in my heart
Compelling me to leave you behind
Before it’s too late and I am the one being left
Again, like always…
Besides that, no one ever taught me
How to stay
And all I know is goodbye

Safety is in goodbye
Safety is in goodbye
Safety is maybe not worth it –
Do I dare to try
And stay?

Click here to read more poems by Elizabeth Hemp

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