Indentured Punishment

All I have done since then is never enough.

You won't ever again play fair with my heart.

I thought I had fixed it, with all the right stuff

But whatever I build in penance, you tear apart

My crimes were committed years ago;

I was wrong and your life I truly upset.

I went to great extremes to lay you low,

I destroyed us both and I live in regret.

Everything decent about me is your influence

All my success should be laid at your door

Your impact on my life is more than immense

If not for you I would be worthless and poor

I ask why do you hold on to all that anger?

It's past the point where the blame is all mine.

When in public you speak of me as a stranger,

Saying you hate me is your most common line

Yet when we are alone I say that "I love you",

Just saying it makes my darkness go grey.

You respond by saying "I love you too"

And for a short while all the pain goes way.

I still hear the insults you use to greet me,

While you won't hear a word of my praise.

When other people speak to me so sweetly

You get angry and bring up those few days

A few days when I betrayed your given trust.

A few days when I became the most evil human.

A few days that I see myself with such disgust,

It can never be possible to live them again.

Oh, I have poor memories of time at my maddest,

Like you have when beating me black and blue.

I hear gossip that you are insane and a sadist,

When you laugh of beating me, I fear it is true.

?

?Lord knows you have the first claim on my heart

You took possession of that deed many years ago

I understand reality, there is no button for restart

But we also hurt worse when we finally let go.

And there stands the irony, the crux of it all

The price for love that we both always pay

Without each other we both stumble and fall

It is why you always return and I let you stay.