Oh failure, I fear you.

When it's late and I'm tired and I want to lie down I go on because

I fear you.

You bring with you when you come

Friends I fear no less;

Inadequacy.

Incapability.

Impotence.

And your entrances always waft with

The scent of broken dreams,

An intoxication concoction of 'what if's and 'could have been's.

It would be easier if I liked you because then I wouldn't try so hard,

But maybe then I'd find myself someone that I'm not.

I fear you

Shape who I am in ways that only my mama should;

I guess

I fear failing her as well.

And I know you're here to teach me, but

It would be nicer if I knew it all from the start.

I wouldn't spend as much time bleeding, bleeding from the heart when

You come around to see me get it wrong:

There's too much at stake to be wrong.

You never announce your arrival,

Coming quickly one day and

Departing

Quite

Conversely.

Hot, cold, hot, cold,

I wish you would just be straight with me.

I never know when to put out new sheets for you;

You've been here so often lately, I might as well give you a key.

I have to hope that

One day you will tire of me, you will find someone new

One day you will have taught me all that

You could do.

(But it never occurs to me that I could let go of you, instead)

One night we'll fight

And you will take all your friends to a pub down the road and

Drown yourself in someone else's untold

Mistakes,

Screaming to the heavens

LIFE DOESN'T COME WITH INSTRUCTIONS!

Only the expectation that they exist.

Maybe a day will come

When I can say

I fear you,

no more.

Or maybe you'll move in,

Make a home,

And we'll dance around madly until one of us gives in

Liberated, ecstatic

That the other is finally gone.