Edema Rue

To the theatre, regarding hope:

Isn’t it funny?

How a few words from the right person can make me feel like I belong?

Isn’t it absurd?

How easy it is to make me feel like I could be okay?

And isn’t the opposite so much funnier?

The way it only takes a moment

To make me want to quit?

To make me want to leave you, because nothing I do will ever let me fit on your stage, fit anywhere?

I want to be around the people who give me hope.

I want to be around the ones who let me belong.

And I want the ones who make me hurt…

The ones who make it my fault…

The ones who expect me to be better…

I want to run from them.

But I can’t.

Isn’t it funny?

I search you for the hope,

And yet I’m stuck with the hopelessness.

Yeah.

It’s funny.

I can’t run from the ones who tear my heart to pieces that need you to heal it.

And since I can’t escape them,

I hope that they hurt.

I hope that they break.

And I hope that it changes them,

Into the sort of person I’ve learned to find backstage.

A person who gives me hope.

A person who can make me want to keep living with but a glance and a grin.

Change them from the person who makes me want to find a knife

And cut

Cut

Cut

My eyes

My fingers

My tongue

My wrists.

I found hope within your walls,

And your curtains.

Beneath your lights,

And surrounded by your web of love.

But there’s more to me

Than just you.

There are more people

Than just your actors.

All the world is not a stage.

And in the parts that aren’t

Your hope fades away.

Your lights fade to dark.

Your curtains are pulled aside.

And the mundane

Weighs heavy

On a heart built from eggshells.

I can’t live without hope.

I can’t live without you,

Since I can’t seem to find hope in places where you are not.

Maybe if I were stronger…

But maybe I don’t want to be stronger. 

Because to be strong is to be hard.

And to be hard

Is to shield your heart

And that shield leaves no room for hope.

And I’d rather hope.

I’d rather lean on you,

And trust that you’ll always be there

Trust that you’ll never fall through

I’ve been away from you for almost a week.

I didn’t think I needed you.

But o, stars, I do.

Life without you is dreary and dull, and scary and lonely.

I can’t wait to go back.

To step back onto your stage.

To once again be with the people who make me feel like I can be anything.

To have all eyes on me,

To slip between your curtains and dance beneath your lights.

You give me hope,

When my world is hopeless.

You hold me tight,

When I’ve been left to fall.

You give me reasons to care,

When all I want is oblivion.

You are becoming what I’d always dreamed you’d be.

Home.

Rue