sometimes i hate her

it’s not fair, i know

because she’s not really that bad

but she drains me so much

that i find myself ignoring her.

it works okay when others are there,

but it gets awkward when they’re not.

pretending she doesn’t exist

is not very kind

and possibly just as draining,

but i think back to the times

i lost my temper,

let myself tell her

all the mean little thoughts

running through my head,

made her cry.

so i thought well, if i can’t say something nice…

and now i’ve got into this habit

of not even acknowledging her.

but it’s awkward, not fair,

more than possibly draining,

and i know it’s unhealthy too.

so i let myself meet her eyes

and hold her gaze,

and addressed her:

“what are we going to do about this?”

~

the face in the mirror had no reply,

but i felt a longing to love her.

i said to myself, “that’s a start.”

someone

there’s someone i could be

but i don’t know her

.

i’ve seen the shape of someone,

a white space of someone,

outlined in the distance

inside my own infinite expanse

.

the ghost i gave myself:

she’s hovered there so many years

wordlessly taunting me,

that ever-shifting shadow

of a superior self

.

i’m someone now, i know –

solid and in living color,

feet on the ground –

but here’s the aching part:

.

this someone, sometimes

i don’t know her any better

than the unknowable

reflection

tell me, do you remember when your reflection

became a specimen behind glass?

the moment you dared to look,

your own face became a stranger’s:

an internal observer effect.

as soon as a choice was made,

it was she, not you, who had

set the course.

if only she hadn’t, you would wish, fuming,

when you weren’t yearning out,

if only i could.

listen: this choice, even this one,

was yours. you have the power then

to retract it. see one soul.

you may have lived

different lives, but

you were always

yourself.

Half in the Spotlight

all my adolescent attempts at novels

revolved around a shy protagonist.

reserved and introverted wallflowers all:

each one blushing with her eyes downcast

to find themselves center stage.

these heroines, in their unfinished worlds,

appear a strange antithesis to the teenage norm –

the creation that mirrors its creator so closely,

a confessional they could not help but make.

yet as these fictional young women

are forced into being the star,

they do reveal more about the one behind them

than she even knew herself.

 

i can see it now:

the girl with the loud voice,

the flashy personality,

wrestling with her deep loneliness

and desire to be Good,

and how in book after book,

movie after movie,

nothing had led her to believe

that the noisy extrovert

could be anything but shallow.

if there was a part of her

that might be excised,

it should be the part yearning

for the spotlight;

these half-selves, each a better self,

were allowed to experience

what she longed for

as long as they were longing

for something else.