Lifeline

I could be your lifeline 

I could save you if I tried 

I won’t tell anyone 

Until the wine spills 

Down my upper thigh 

It looks like blood, I say 

And I’m glad it could be mine 

I think I could save the world 

Overwhelming hubris 

Balanced on my shoulders 

If Atlas placed the world in my hands

I would put it on a necklace

Let it carry me around, let it drag me down

Cause all I wanted to be was a lifeline  

I could be your lifeline 

Plug my outlet to the wall 

Put my lifeline in your arm 

I will flood you 

With good feelings and memories 

I will lift you from the brink 

Do you know I could save you?

Or we could just talk about it

Where I could try to save you again 

I’d do it over and over again 

All I wanted to be was your lifeline

Trading all of you like cards for a lifetime 

I bear it all without even trying 

Even when I try to brush it off 

If I was born to be a vessel and not a man 

It would make perfect sense but 

Why am I not better at saving you

Why can’t you all do what I want to 

Why do I feel this ache in my shoulders

Why won’t I tell anyone?

I want to be your lifeline

I want to save you I want to try 

I want to be there when you cry

I want to lift the darkness in your eyes

But the moon is getting closer 

And it’s telling me what awaits 

I see the silhouette of a perfect fate…

Emily Rutz is a first year English Major. ER1034711@wcupa.edu