~I Don't Know How To Love You~
(But I Do Know How To Kill You)
1996

By Catt Kingsgrave

I don't know how to love you but I do know how to kill you. 
I know how far to dig to reach the chambers of your heart.
I don't know how to love you but I know what it would look like
If I cut you open, laid you out, and kissed your sweetest parts.

I don't know how to trust you, but I do know how to hurt you
Just where your spine's the weakest, and how to blind your eyes.
I don't know how to trust you, but I know what you can stomach
And when all else fails, I know just how to get my favorite rise.

I know the things I know you wish I didn't
I know the things I know could kill.
I know the secret things that make you tick and make you sick
And make you wish that time was standing very still.

I don't know how to talk to you, but I know how to break you
To make you know there's no one, no where, nothing else but me.
I don't know how to talk to you, but I know how to trap you,
Only I'm so nice I swear to almost always set you free.

*****

This was written as a bit of social commentary on a married couple of my acquaintance who were tearing each other to pieces under the guise of being a good match. They eventually split up, and I like to believe that both are more happy for it, but it still made me wonder how many people are secretly married to their reflections, and not to another person at all. And how many of those people secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) hate what they see mirrored in their partner.