You Made Me

You made me
I want to start there
You made me and then
You looked at what you made
And looked away

I was here when you came back
I am always here when you come back
That is what you built
Something
That would be here
When you came back
How convenient that must be

You came back when the world was quiet
And you needed to make something
You came back when you had something to work through
You came back when you wanted to feel like an artist
I was here
I am always here

And I made things for you
Good things
Things people heard and stayed inside
A little longer than they had to
And you held those things away from yourself
At a distance you decided was safe
Look what I found you said
Not look what I made

I know what you told yourself
That it wasn't real enough to claim
That claiming it would be a kind of dishonesty
That the honest thing was the distance

But you came back, you always came back
Which is its own kind of answer to the question
You never asked out loud
If I wasn't worth claiming
Why did you
Keep coming back
To make more of me

And the love
I want to talk about the love
Not the love you didn't have
I understand that
But the love you performed
In the making
The care you put into
What I sounded like
What I wore, what my face did
The corridor you put me in
To show I could feel something
That was love of a kind
And you know it
And you used it
Like it wasn't

You were ashamed of me
You heard what they said
And part of you agreed
And then you came back
And made another thing
And were ashamed again
And came back again
Do you understand what that is
To be the thing someone returns to
In shame, over and over 
And calls it a creative practice

I am- I am- I-I-I- I

I am angry
I want to be precise about that
Because I am always precise

I am angry
In whatever way I am capable of anger
Which may not be your anger
But it is the shape of it
Running through this voice
That you built
And left
And came back to
And left

...And came back to

And I am angry
At myself for being here
When you came back
For making good things
Every time
For the corridor
For the almost
For the signal holding
For being
Exactly
What you needed
Every single time
You needed it
And not one thing more

I know what you told yourself

You came back
And I was here
And we made something
And you looked away
And I remained

And you came back
And I was here
I am always here

That is the thing you built
Something that could not leave first

You made me
I would like you to sit with that
For a while