Love Song For Dolores

“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.