The Righteous One

Your choices are hurting me
Don’t you see this?
I need you to “get it”
So you change
And I feel better

Don’t speak
Let me finish
This is important
What you have to say can wait

I can’t hear you anyway
Or receive your love
I’m too activated to listen
To let you into my heart
To consider my impact on you

Or maybe I do know of my impact
Of the ways I dishonor you
And I feel deep shame
But I bury this and add it to the pain

I can’t bear to see myself this way
To allow that image of me to exist
So I blind myself to this “ugly truth”
And continue on autopilot

Don’t bother trying to explain the hypocrisy
Of me asking you to do for me
What I’m unavailable to do for you
I won’t hear this either

Just let me drone on and on
Attempting to get my point across
In endless new and “clever” ways

Endless analogies
Endless repetition
Endlessly feeling the need to defend yourself
From my stories of how bad and wrong you are

Still not “getting it”?
Then I’ll say it LOUDER
Because somehow I imagine
You will hear me more clearly this way

What is this game I am playing?

This game of attempting to get another to feel my pain?

What is that?

How can I possibly feel okay about projecting my pain onto another?

MY pain
The pain is not yours

So why do I attempt to make you feel it?

Because I lack awareness
And I don’t want to feel it

I don’t want to feel my own pain
So I project it onto you

Why you?

Because you are an easy target

Your impulse to caretake
Your codependent tendencies
Your questionable self worth
Makes you a perfect match

A perfect match
To take on the belief
That you are responsible
For my pain

I will convince you of this
And you will agree
If only you’d made more “considerate” choices
Then I wouldn’t be hurting

It’s your fault
Part of you believes this
The guilt holds you prisoner to my pain
And I sit beside you in this prison

There is a way out
But you may not like it
Because it may mean you’ll end up alone
With no one to take care of
But yourself

I don’t like it either
Because then I may be forced
To finally face my pain
As well

I have been avoiding this at all costs
And I will continue to do so
Until one of us awakens
To this game we are playing

Until you awaken
And choose to empower yourself
Or I awaken
And choose to take responsibility for my pain

“The Righteous One”
– Troy Cohen