Why It Scares Me – La Dispute

At times I’ve shouted out unprovoked, at the world and you
Just to see if the people around me react
Sometimes I think they’re all acting
At times I’m scared that I’m acting too. Like
My movements or stage directions?
Was that a change in topic or a beat in a scene?
Have I been taking my emotional cues from a script I wrote at sixteen?

Maybe I just think about it all so much
That that the fear stays close to all the ghosts I’ve touched
Makes me question
Was it love or just lust?
Caked in blood or old rust?
I don’t know

Don’t we remember all the moments we remember the best
Framed in poems and in pictures, sang aloud in refrains?
Does this cycle of pain and disdain for the past
Not work exactly the same?

Maybe it’s just as much about what comes our way as it is how we react
Just as much about the things that we’ve still got as it is about the things we lack
I know, we won’t always keep around those we feel we need-
Some are fading in frames, some were born to leave-
But if we’re still here, and we still breathe
At least we’ve still got time to figure it out
To know what to do
To know how to feel
Know the things that I’ve been making up inside my head
And to know what’s real
I want to believe that the way I am is just the way it goes
For the things that came, not the things I chose to come
I want to know if I had any control
I want to know if it’d comfort me

And if my heart just stops, pack my memories in it-
I want to know all the love I’ve got
And if my heart just stops, keep me alive for a minute-
I want to know if a curtain drops