The Only Way Out, by Taylor Scott

I guess I’m going through something.
Don’t you just hate it when I say that?
All my emphasis on guess like I’m not
a reckless monetary liability from weeks
of wasting paychecks on front row seats
to viewings of my life burning down--

my own old Hollywood sideshow.
I guess it doesn’t matter much,
you’re not listening nearly enough to hate
what I have to say anyway. You’re stuck
like a kid in a sandbox and too big a fool
to know that I know better, that I know next

to the oranges in a chain grocery store
in the desolation of some backwards hick town,
another poor girl will pluck your bruised ego
from a bushel of disappointing men
and you’ll feel electrified once more. In your
current state, you find yourself distraught--

that’s the truth. Distraught! Over a girl
and her inability to mourn you “properly”.
Well, die first—exit my life with some class,
leave me with memories worth mourning!
Between work and crawling around on my knees
for a god that threw me to the wolves, I guess

I could spare a moment to mourn you “properly”,
but I won’t. I ran three thousand miles away
seeking safety and grief is anything but safe.
When I fled across state lines, I ran into
a daydream—or so I thought. Every day
I wake up to find him still waiting for me--

it’s as real as your arrogance. This incidental
happiness with this person that waited to see me
smile, with this person that I’d drop everything for--
you’re better off calling him “Replacement”--
he could give me a real reason to mourn.
Kindness without the strings, manipulation

is uncharted territory—he refuses to dim
my glow. I’m not putting it all on the line
with him, I’m not putting it all on the line
for him. There is safety in his presence.
I watch his eyes when he sees me--
they are simmering soup on a snow day.

While you crawl into a bad mood stew,
I forget the way joy fills my lungs,
how it feels when another person tends
to the garden in my veins.
You wouldn’t understand that--
you evicted your dignity lifetimes ago,

there is no room for concern in your profile.
It’s how I know you’ll never think about
mourning me. Don’t you just hate it
when I make everything about me? I guess
I’m going through something
but the mourning process is not it.