YOU DON’T OWN ME

by Black_Aphrodite

 

Hello, it’s me…

The only one you care to call

Day or night, I’m always here…

 

Why have you let my availability

Make you think to devise a cage for me?

I was here and here I remain…

 

Just because I might let you inside

Just because I love you

Just because you are important

Just because…

 

A million reasons to keep you near…

But you assume too much

I feel hunted and haunted

Pursued, afraid, trapped by your desire

 

You push so hard, too much

You say this is love

But your love doesn’t love me

It takes my breath away

It strangles me with your expectations

 

You’ve changed overnight…

Your eyes follow me, stalk me as if

I am your prey

The color shifts in your eyes

I can feel you becoming darker

 

You press, you push, you pull me

Into the dark, swirling pools

I can’t swim, I can’t breathe

You’re smothering me

 

You don’t own me

I barely own myself

Why must you make us ugly?

Why do you need me to be in bondage

For you to trust me?

 

Is your love so pure?

Are your motives so noble?

Why don’t you trust me?

Why do you have to build a wall around ME

To keep YOUR heart safe?

 

You don’t love me

You kill me

 

My heart races, I can smell my fear

The pulse in my neck, my breath quickening

As I search for a place to hide

From your questions

Your interrogation

 

You don’t have the right to know where I’ve been

You think that money can buy me

You give me presents, but I know what they are

Bait for your trap,

So that I can be enclosed

Falling victim to the glitter

 

How do you think I feel?

Do you care?

Are you utterly unaware?

 

I taste the salt in my tears,

I hurt, I mourn for the love

For you, that you slowly murder

How can I be true?

 

When you won’t let me be me?

How can you love me

if you want me to be someone else?

 

You say that you want to be my lover

But you act as a father, a judge, a jailor

Your voice no longer calls to my heart

It pierces my thoughts

 

I have to find excuses for everything

You say there’s no reason to fear love’s pressure

But I see the core of you

You would force me

You speak of family

Love, commitment

Why do those words upon your lips

Sound like a prison sentence?

 

You won’t slow down

You plough straight ahead

Over my objections

You’re beyond reason

 

You love my look, my smile, my ways

But you say you love me

So I’m supposed to obey you

Be with you, stay, don’t go

Just because you say so?

 

You don’t own me

When I offered you my love freely

You sought to put a price tag on it

Because you thought you could buy me

 

Did you actually believe you could exchange a price tag

For a dog tag?

Do you not know me?

Were you just kidding yourself?

Because you weren’t fooling me

 

Did you not know that I would rebel

Run, hide, disappear?

Did you think I would have nowhere to go?

 

You assume, you disrespect me, you try to compromise

To convince me that all is well

To make me yield to your whims

But I’m so brittle, I might break

 

I keep telling you that I can’t do this

I can’t be torn apart by you anymore

If you were anyone else, I’d already be gone

But that’s not enough for you

 

Everything is us, we, two

Whatever happened to just me and you?

You don’t own me