Broken Record
We wear out the needle with another round of accusation,
The vinyl hissing under your voice, a hiss I know like my own damn heartbeat–
Every night a stylus dropped into the same old rut,
The same fuckin’ argument, same cracked apologies,
Worn grooves etched with midnight fuck-you’s and post-coital cries,
Every kiss followed by the scratch of anger, the whine of retreat,
Nothing changes, not the words, not the ache, not the stuttered drum of our pulse
Chasing its own tail through a room thick with the ghosts of yesterday’s mistakes.
Your love is a melody that warps and fractures as soon as I start to trust it,
A refrain I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try to lift the needle and walk away.
We circle each other in this looping hell,
Bitterness layered over desire, bruises pressed into flesh as proof we were here.
The air tastes of broken glass and second chances,
Promises that play on repeat until even the echo gives up.
I hear your laughter in the next room,
But it’s threaded with the memory of every lie,
Every apology that sounded like an accusation,
Every time you promised me forever,
But meant “until the next fucking fight.”
I keep spinning, stuck in the groove you carved into my ribs,
Hoping this time, we’ll play a different song,
But it’s just crackling through the dark–
Every I love you, every fuck off, every come back, every leave,
Just another rotation on a record we can’t afford to break,
Yet can’t stop playing.
Even when I try to scratch a new path,
You run your fingernails down my back,
Scraping up every wound I tried to heal,
And the blood that runs is the same old chorus,
Red, raw, undeniable.
We’re a broken record, baby,
Skipping through the best and worst of us,
Never knowing if the next note is love or rage or just the sound of us coming apart,
But even as the lights flicker out, the vinyl keeps turning,
Etched with everything we can’t forget,
All the music we never learned to play.