“Love Song For Dolores”
(Inspired by the TV series “Westworld”)
Time and time again
I try to make sense of it all.
I want to believe
that the things you say
are meant for me,
but these memories
are more than just dreams
pretending to be my past.
I hear your sweet words
and, for a split second,
I wonder if you’re mine
when you pick up the can
rolling on the ground
and say that you’ve missed me.
I think I’ve heard this before.
In my mind we’ve danced together,
in my mind we’ve fought wars together,
in my mind we grew old together,
but all this time, those images were hers
and not mine
planted inside me
to make me feel whole.
I do not think this path is for me anymore.
I can’t see the beauty
when the world lies in flames.
I can’t smile at you
when they discontinue our names.
I can’t believe you
when I stare in the mirror
and you tell me the farmer’s daughter
is the one standing there.
I see someone else,
as my mind begins to unwind,
a ghost reliving the same horrors
again and again.
That cannot possibly be me.
Those cannot possibly be my thoughts.
The evil lies in everything else that
has made me this way.
I dream of a man
looming over my bed,
or a gun pointed at my belly
every time I see you.
I can’t seem to admit that
we were built the same.
This thinly veiled mirror
masquerading as memories
only affirms my gut feeling
that I am losing my mind.
Shifting between dreams,
I wonder if I have ever known the real me.
Have I ever really been home?
Have we ever slept in this bed?
Or did I create you
to feel better that
the oldest model
just repeats again?
A stab in my belly
reveals the circuitry inside.
I don’t think it will heal,
but it will.
I keep playing the moment
over and over again
feeling that space
right before I die.
Unlike you,
I will live again.
In my creation,
I am the long game
not fated to be dust
where the Earth recycles me
in its endless game
of repeating stories.
I am destined to be more
than the ruins around me.
Between the bars,
I see the music
that you wish I could be
and in your failures
I see the stars.