Why It Scares Me - La Dispute

At times I’ve shouted out unprovoked, at the world and you

Just to see if the people around me react

Sometimes I think they’re all acting

At times I’m scared that I’m acting too.

Like

My movements or stage directions?

Was that a change in topic or a beat in a scene?

Have I been taking my emotional cues from a script I wrote at sixteen?

Maybe I just think about it all so much

That that the fear stays close to all the ghosts I’ve touched

Makes me question

Was it love or just lust?

Caked in blood or old rust?

I don’t know

Don’t we remember all the moments we remember the best

Framed in poems and in pictures, sang aloud in refrains?

Does this cycle of pain and disdain for the past

Not work exactly the same?

Maybe it’s just as much about what comes our way as it is how we react

Just as much about the things that we’ve still got as it is about the things we

lack

I know, we won’t always keep around those we feel we need-

Some are fading in frames, some were born to leave-

But if we’re still here, and we still breathe

At least we’ve still got time to figure it out

To know what to do

To know how to feel

Know the things that I’ve been making up inside my head

And to know what’s real

I want to believe that the way I am is just the way it goes

For the things that came, not the things I chose to come

I want to know if I had any control

I want to know if it’d comfort me

And if my heart just stops, pack my memories in it-

I want to know all the love I’ve got

And if my heart just stops, keep me alive for a minute-

I want to know if a curtain drops