"I want you to walk with me." Desperate
‘I want you to walk with me.
I will try very hard
To cause you to like me,
To live as you do,
To do for you,
To be you, inside of me.’
‘We two are as one. That is what I see.
Let us go forth.
I will be your skin and your muscle. You will be my heart.’
‘I say we were the same as children,
But did not know it.
So I hold that we will be joined in dotage.
I will be for you in your growing old
And in your weakening. Let my bones
Be yours and lean on me.’
‘I will do for you what only I can do.
You will love me. Need me.
Want me. I will be as you are,
So that you will have no choice.
You and I, always together,
Thinking with a single mind,
Walking the same step.
They will not tell us apart.’
‘What is that you say?
You do not want me to be like you?
To be your all?
You do not want
To live in me and I in you?’
‘Then, I have not choice.
I will leave.’
Susan Patterson
04-2012
‘I want you to walk with me.
I will try very hard
To cause you to like me,
To live as you do,
To do for you,
To be you, inside of me.’
‘We two are as one. That is what I see.
Let us go forth.
I will be your skin and your muscle. You will be my heart.’
‘I say we were the same as children,
But did not know it.
So I hold that we will be joined in dotage.
I will be for you in your growing old
And in your weakening. Let my bones
Be yours and lean on me.’
‘I will do for you what only I can do.
You will love me. Need me.
Want me. I will be as you are,
So that you will have no choice.
You and I, always together,
Thinking with a single mind,
Walking the same step.
They will not tell us apart.’
‘What is that you say?
You do not want me to be like you?
To be your all?
You do not want
To live in me and I in you?’
‘Then, I have not choice.
I will leave.’
Susan Patterson
04-2012
Recording of Desperate:
Discussion:
This is the story of two people, the gender doesn't matter. It is a conversation. The reader might think this poem is a love story. But it is more than that. One person is desperate to be part of the life of the second person. He/ she yearns to be like the other, almost to be one human, unified. He/she sees them as being together as children and on into old age. It is to the point that the person talking will force the relationship. The recipient of the affection does not want that. The first person is surprised. Given the shock of the truth, he/she must leave.
Again, the reader might think that it a story of adoration and devotion. One cannot actually tell. There is more than a hint of control with the first person. There is demand for a bonding of the two. There is a bending of the truth so that it presents more like the story he/she wants to have. There is an insistence of a desired type of relationship and it is simply too much. skp
Again, the reader might think that it a story of adoration and devotion. One cannot actually tell. There is more than a hint of control with the first person. There is demand for a bonding of the two. There is a bending of the truth so that it presents more like the story he/she wants to have. There is an insistence of a desired type of relationship and it is simply too much. skp
▶ Whether you are looking for love or hate, you will find it. Earlene Grey
Susan Patterson at a recent book show at Pioneer Square, Portland, Oregon.
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