When Are You Gonna Roar?

Why don’t you write a poem?

Huh?

A poem about me
And how much you love me
So I can read it
While you’re in the next room
Working on the next item
On your agenda
Your to-do list

Why don’t you do a play?
A performance piece
A reading
About our relationship
And the deep inner feelings
You have about it

While I sit in the audience
Hearing your thoughts
For the first time
Amongst strangers
Listening to the stranger
That lives with me

Why don’t you use us
For one of your stories
That you submit to magazines
I’ll write down what I’ve worn
Everyday that we’ve been together
And you can create imagery
And symbolism
And metaphor
Out of arguments
And memories
And loss

While I read it
And wonder
If that’s what I really sound like
If that’s who I really am
Seeing words in quotes
Makes them look
So much more harsh
Than they sounded
In your head

Do you ever notice that?

I’ve noticed
That I’m dating art
Not an artist
But just his art

I’m living behind glass
Being observed
For future pieces
Where you’ll mimic my voice
Or have one of your ex’s
Play me as a role

And you sit there
On the couch
Watching television
Telling me it’s important
Telling me it’s your work
That it’s culture
That I’m life
That somehow the two have to merge
Even though I think
That’s impossible

When are you gonna roar?

When are you gonna stop painting
My naked body
And instead
Touch it
Take it
Take it into your own hands

The paintings are everywhere
But I’m right here
And you’re not getting any closer

You want to paint something?
Paint me
Paint my body
Dribble your art
All over me
Color me in
Turquoise legs
Aqua arms
Bright red fingertips

Stop writing about our sex life
If you’re not actually going to have sex
Because you’re too tired
After staying up till 5am
Revising two paragraphs
In a story
That didn’t make sense in your head
And makes even less sense on paper

Stop going to open mic nights
And doing poems called
‘My Wife’
‘Deep Inside You’
‘Blood, Heart, Baby’
You sound like John Mayer
Trying to sound like Janis Joplin
Trying to sound like Hunter S. Thompson
You sound like an idiot

Stop walking around in nothing but sweats
Blue paint streaking across your chest
Oil and dirt crusted over in your hair
A beard coming in on your face
And then get mad at me when I call you beautiful

You are beautiful

Stop denying me the right
To call you what you are

Stop
Stop
Stop

When are you gonna break out?
Stop making clichés
Bad essays
Rants and raves
About corruption
Environmental decline
The Man
Women
Religion
Interpersonal bullshit

Stop telling people what they already know
Stop emulating people who stopped making art
Twenty years ago
Songwriters
Playwrights
Innovators

Bullshit!

Start trying to be a man alive
And not one who died forty years ago
After writing an overrated book
That a bunch of potheads
Think encapsulates their worthless lives

Start giving a shit about what I think about you
And not what people who are never impressed
Say when they’re trying not to sound impressed
'He's good'
'He's okay'
'He's mediocre'

People who are riding the coattails
Of promises they made in the past
That never came true

Start hanging around with normal people
And not pretentious college dropouts
Who teach bullshit eastern meditation methods
That don’t really exist

Stop hanging out with people named
Acrasia and Lomeni

Those aren’t real fucking names!

Stop sitting on a pile of paper
Working on a book
About a bunch of artists
Dying in a small apartment

Gorky already wrote it
It’s called ‘The Lower Depths’
I bought it for you last Christmas
And you still didn't get the hint

And what Gorky didn’t get down
La Boheme did

Stop trying to write a book for your generation
And just write something for you

When are you gonna wake up?
Stop choosing misery over majesty

I once saw you
Tell a story that was so funny
My father
Who hadn’t laughed
In the five years
Since my mother died
Fell down on the floor
And laughed so hard
He nearly passed out

I watched you
Take your little niece’s hand
Put a paintbrush in it
Dip it in black watercolor
And guide it across a page

And I remember thinking
That the painting would be so dreary
Black paint
Watercolor
Scrap paper

And when I looked over your shoulder
I saw the most beautiful portrait
Of that little girl
And you made her feel like she made it
You made her feel like
She brought out the beauty in herself

You did that

You might be able
To make some amazing things
Out of the depths
Of isolation and grief
But you could make something better
Out of joy
If you could find it

And God knows
It would certainly be more interesting

You could talk to me
You could open up again
Like you used to
Before all this
Before all this happened

You could sit up with me at night
You could lie next to me
You could tell me stories
And run your hands up my side
And kiss the spot on my shoulder
So that I feel your lips there
Hours
Days later

You could admit
That losing the baby was hard
That it’s hard to talk about
That you need help to deal with it
You could admit that to me
I wouldn’t break down
I’m stronger than that

And I’m waiting
Waiting for the day
When you beat your chest
And pull your hair
And blame yourself
And lose it
So that I can get you back

But I’m sick of waiting
I’m sick of the silence
I’m sick of living that day
Over and over again
Like we just rushed to the hospital
Like the pain in my body
Never went away
Like I’m going through it
And you’re crying
And your Mom is crying
And I’m trying not to—

And then nothing

I’m sick of it

I want to know when it’s going to happen
I’m terrified
But I’m ready
I’m ready for you to do it
So do it

Because I know when you do
I’ll see a portrait again
Hung up in your studio
And maybe it’ll be of her
Maybe it’ll be our little girl
All grown up

Or maybe it’ll be a funny story
One that finally gets me to laugh
One that doesn’t end
With a curt twist
Or a cynical turn of phrase

I’m sick
But I’m not
I'm not sick anymore
I’m strong enough to walk out
If you tell me it’s never coming
That you’re just going to wallow in Purgatory
That you don’t know how to do it anymore
How to make something
That doesn't celebrate
That day

I want to know when
I want to know when it’s going to happen
I want to know it’s going to be soon

Because I’ve already done it
The day after it happened
When you left because it was too hard

I roared

I roared at God
I roared at you
I roared at the baby

At the doctors
At my parents
At myself

I roared into the closets
I tore the clothes apart
I destroyed the furniture
I ate all the food
I broke every window

And even though the hurt
Clung to me like a clamp
Deep inside my chest

I felt something else leave
I felt it pass
And go somewhere else

Then you came home
And I saw it in you

And ever since then I’ve been waiting
Waiting for you break
Whatever was left
Whatever I missed

So
Tell me

Tell me when

When are you gonna roar?