Love and Attention

by Sarah Jane Souther

I give attention to what I love

But I can’t have the love I love 

So now I want attention

Did I mention

You were my genesis 

My love turned nemesis 

I’ll say it for emphasis

The lack of you 

Let out my dark side

Released my sick desire 

To set my life on fire

So 

I had some flings

I ran with a bling ring

That stole hearts instead of money 

And honey they told me 

That all of those kisses from the lips of the rich

Could make up for the itch

Could fill out the pitch dark 

Places and spaces

That spread in my soul when you said

Goodbye and

Left without looking and

Leapt without knowing 

Why

Why 

Does the hit of a touch from their skin

Of the rush from this gin

Leave all of those 

Places and spaces

More black than before

Leave me wanting more 

Than some pitiful play 

My signature game

Of stealing and reeling them in 

It’s their hearts that I took 

From the tip of a hook 

They held out in their own bleeding hands

As it stands

I take what I can’t have 

And think that I’ll go mad 

From the vision 

A spitting collision 

The last look 

I ever got of you leaving 

The night sky heaving

Two hearts cleaving 

And me still screaming

And never believing 

The lie that you’re not 

What you seem

I don’t know what that means

I’ve seen

Your mind’s eye teeming

With mysteries 

Our twin histories

Go back too far 

For me to forget you now

No matter how

Many stolen hearts

I hold in my hands

How many heat filled glances

And midnight chances

And low light romances

I try on for size

And watch as their eyes

Run rampant 

Over little yellow dresses

As they listen to all my obsessions

Just thin veiled references

To you 

I reach 

For addictions and

Run past conviction 

And look for permission

I can’t find

In a heart’s fire

And I can’t seek 

In a man’s eyes

I can’t knock on 

The door of my own desires

Thinking I’ll find the entrance

To happiness 

Or love without messiness

Or life with an absence of grief

And now I stand at the bar

Another heist in the cards

But I find myself wanting a

A getaway car

My mind ticks back 

To the broken past 

And then forward fast

to more mistakes

Cause I know the stakes

Are high 

The rest of my life

Could end or begin tonight

Will I choose this life of crime

And spend my time

Taking what isn’t mine?

Or I can take 

Pain as my medication 

Heartbreak as a meditation 

And life without you as a conversation

Between loss and the forgiveness of sin

Between real love and the counterfeit spin?

Between despair and my need for redemption?

I give attention to what I love

But I can’t have the love I love 

So can I spurn attention?

I have a question

Could this be my terminus

My sin turned impetus

A brand new precipice  

The choice like a leap

Setting me free

From needing the hearts 

Of those others

I should have called brothers

I think with a shudder of the

Damage I have done and
I wonder 

If it’s time to turn myself in