To Whom It May Concern PT: You Have a Lot in Common

You fight
And you bicker
Throwing accusations still
It's been years
But somehow nothing

Has changed

 

Bits are still missing

It's still the other person's fault

The other is still not honest

Everything is still wrong

 

Does one deserve

More than the other

To be listened to

To be believed?

 

Does one deserve more

When it feels like both

Are only seeing through lenses

They created

 

It was always the same

The screaming

The fighting

The extreme anxiety

The never being safe

The wanting out

 

And then both wonder why now

When given the choice

I avoid both

 

You could never talk to each other

And I could never talk to either

But you have a lot in common

You both love me

And I love both of you

 

I don't know how else

To get this all off my chest

Both of you want me on your side

But there shouldn't be a side

And I shouldn't have to choose

 

And somehow just when color

Makes its way back in

Something happens

To make it all leak out again

 

Questions of if one

Has more rights than the other

When both of you are guilty

And both dismiss in the same way

 

You have a lot in common

You both feed me the same lines

And for some reason I still

Love both of you

 

There's so much to say

But when I try I can't get the words

Unless I'm only writing them

Unless I'm quoting them

 

There's so much pain

I don't know how to release

I don't know what to do with

 

The problem I'm confronted with

Is that I want to rebuild

But I also want to cut off

 

Torn between befriending and

Removing the parasites

That have been eating away at me

All my life

 

You have a lot in common

Both of you seem at least vaguely aware

That something is wrong

But have no idea the depths in which it all goes

 

And I don't know how to explain

To either of you

How deep this cut is

That I find myself with

Trying to dig you out of

 

I find myself exhausted

You both believe yourselves guiltless

You both point at the other

Caught in so many sleepless nights

As a child and adult

 

It's still hard to find safety

Shadows on the edges of my vision

Everywhere I go

Staring at me blankly

 

My nightmares were reality

While I was growing up

I slept to escape them

I still do

 

My brain has buried

Any specific events by now

Trying to save myself from them

But I can't manage to bury the pain

It's used the soil to root itself in

 

You have a lot in common

I can't trust anything either of you say

You burned all of that long ago

In different ways

 

I'm not stupid

I can see both of you

Telling subtle lies

You each seem to believe are true

To pick at the other

To try to rebuild yourselves

 

I would suggest you talk to each other

But when you're in the same room

It hurts

It only causes you to pick up

Where you left

 

You have a lot in common

You both hate each other in different ways

You both feel wronged by the other

Both stabbed in the back

And both holding knives

Trying to take my hand

 

You have a lot in common

You really do

Contradictions constantly

Finding new problems

 

I know we all need help

Some way to manage to get everything out

But every time I try to bring it up

I can't

 

Because you'll ask for specifics

I've spent years burying

Because you won't listen anyways

Because you'll just blame the other

Because it's never mattered what I say

 

You don't believe it

You won't believe it

But the problem is
You have so much in common

 

You both love me

And I love both of you...