Monday Mix Tape Poetry Smash: Annie's Strange Mercy

I wonder if he remembers that morning, after I changed my mind (for the hundredth time)
he sat on the kitchen floor & I sank in his chair
the new St. Vincent album kept playing & playing
and it was infuriating because it felt like a film
except I hated all of my lines & there was nothing beautiful about any of it
and he had just downloaded the album
It felt like a small, quiet act of hope, & maybe victory, & maybe a bit of pleading:
Stay, won't you?
Yet at the time I couldn't, no matter how much
it was a perfect soundtrack to our shitty movie
I was the dilettante & he was the surgeon
Or no, wait, I just messed it all up
Cause I was the one dissecting, and picking, at
Every little thing, opening us up for painful adjustments
Why, why was I so cruel? Why was it all so cruel?
No, I don't know what.
But you roughed me up. I roughed you up.
I didn't have any good news, I didn't know how to help you sleep
We had nothing close to the makings of a perfect plan

"Slow down, dilettante.
Hang on."

I finally listened to the album again. It was nothing like I had remembered.