I could never lie about caring a lot

James Bowden

To myself.
What have I become? What am I becoming?
I don’t want to care. It’s too much work.
But without it I am nothing.

I want to live in the moment. To value the process and forgo the end. To not care about the end, because no
matter how hard I try, I do. But how can I value the process if I suspect it’s leading me straight over a cliff?

I have all of these ideals. All these feelings, desires, thoughts. And yet, what it always seems to come down to
is intimacy. Or the lack thereof.
Intimacy is an end as well. But also a process. I hate commitment.

I can’t deal with this. Or I don’t want to. It’s hard.
I know the good things in life come from hard work but dammit, I’m tired. So what if all I want is a pair of
loving arms to wrap around me and reassure me that I have value without greatness, that I deserve to be loved
regardless of how hard I work and what I accomplish. I certainly don’t believe that for myself, though I could
for another.

We can’t all be great.
We can all love and be loved.
We all love greatness.

I just want to say Fuck it, and do. And be. And love. And be loved. Is it wrong to
love being loved? Is it wrong to be so damn human that I care and don’t care and feel and hate and desire and yearn and despise and struggle

and give up?

What if that’s all we can do?

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The title comes from the end of a lovely Dermot Kennedy song, Shelter. I particularly like the end of the poem as a way to move forward, though I’m not sure it was that when I first wrote it, more of a defeat probably. But then again, maybe that’s the point anyway.