Reflection

i.
Am I cheating? I typed not long ago.
The receiver replied No. He knew
that was what I wanted to hear:
something comforting
I could twist myself into believing.
I’m good at that.

Definition notwithstanding, “cheating”
is a poor label to slap on just another source
of pain. It hurts, damnit—
but it’s not hurting me.
Not as much as it should.

ii.
Damn this empathy of mine.
It’s why I dug that point into my skin
those months ago; why one person’s tears
were enough to make my own eyes sting as I read his words.
[Does anyone else see the parallels here?
A poem, a conversation, an agreement-that’s-not;
rejection, confusion; hurt.
Return. Repeat. Déjà vu brings nothing but
a better understanding of that latter half of March.]

I cannot summon tears for the boy beside me,
the one I dodge behind so transparently
with my thoughts displayed naked to the world.
I’m not cheating, no, but I’m hurting him.
I’ve turned our conversations into lies
of thin loose-woven cloth failing to conceal
the truths beneath—the bitter tangles
neither of us are willing to reveal.
Why should we? We have a week—less.
We’ll live in happy fabrications
and leave the truth for later,
when it doesn’t matter anymore.

iii.
I should feel bad for all of this. I should hate
what I’m doing, what I’ve done. I used to.
But I don’t—I can’t—no longer—
and that’s worst of all.
I’ve lost my empathy
and I don’t remember why I should care.

iv.
I used to be so selfless;
so concerned with what other people thought
that I valued their reactions over my own emotions
which changed constantly and were surely
not to be trusted. Mass consciousness
had to be more reliable than my own.

I tried to cure myself of it. I recognized
bowing down would get me nowhere but nearer to the ground.
And it worked too well. Yet I still
don’t manage to think for myself. I react.
Any stupid idea becomes rational
if I think about it long enough.
One day the consequences will catch up with me.
One day I’ll figure out
they already have.

v.
Silly girl. Nothing’s happened.
My life isn’t nearly as dramatic
as I make it out to be.
Insta-Mountain: no molehill required. Just a pen.

I search for truth I seek to expose
in the best journalistic tradition.
But step carefully, I have to remember:
the part of me that controls the hand
rules the words
and the words I write dictate what I believe.
Truth evolves by moments and generations:
natural selection of the mind.

vi.
Reader, be careful; writer, beware:
not everything I pen is true
but once I write, it becomes real.

vii.
My mom thinks poetry has stolen her daughter;
my atheist soul seduced by these white pages.
She’s not as wrong as I pretend.
I’m not the girl she used to read to at night.
Once I would’ve thought that good.
But I have three years before I turn eighteen.

“If you spend too much time in your head
you won’t be able to get out of it,” she said,
sleep mask on her forehead, anger in her eyes.
Her voice was laced with the same deadly sarcasm
that bites in my own icy irate tone.
I didn’t say anything for a minute,
just let her words wash over me, slam me against the door.
“Self-reflection is fine.
But you’re lost in your own Bridget-world
and you need to join the rest of us sometime."

She’s right.

No amount of writing, of diving deep into shallow depths
can give me anything I don’t already know.
Maybe it’s time to stop thinking
and start actually living,
giving back all I’ve taken for so long.
I can’t spend my life in my own world anymore.

viii.
Finally:
pain.