Carrot Juice Poem by Stephanie Buchanan

Twice I’ve turned my back on you and twice you’ve handed me the keys again
Like a child, I throw my toys in the rain, their temptation washes slowly away
Exposed are the selfish delusions I assigned to each
My indifference is paralyzing

The rain continues to fall, continues to echo, continues to erase away the mistakes
My excavation reveals the buried self-realizations of an abstract and inconsistent mind
In between storms, would you really stand under the clouds?
These desires cripple my integrity and blindside my decency

You begin to run, but history trips you before you take the first step
We’ve twisted our own regret into an unrivaled manifestation of perfection
This story may end, the weight of it will continue to inhibit our quest
Take my forever for it’s riddled with flaws and no longer mine to give away

I may not wait for you, but I will abandon my boundaries
I will sketch your ideals into each breath I take
I will cling to the honesty you invoked and unchain my wrists from disillusionment
and when nobody’s watching, I will cry

I hope the void you used me to fill consumes you until you’re forced to face it
You created the outcome and manipulated the circumstances before we ever began
I played in this band knowing we would be obsessed and then inescapably destroyed by our own aspirations.
The seduction of the carrot distracts us from the puppeteer who dangles it, how far will we chase it before tiring from the desire to possess it altogether.