loyd.net

When young and foolish
(Though perhaps not as foolish
As I am now)
I claimed not my humanity
But knew only anger and fear.
(Fear it was that surpassed all emotions.)
I struggled with disdain
Bordering on hatred
Yet found in guilt a strange comfort.

My mother roused my anger—
Teasing me she said
That when
(Not if—poor choice of words)
I fell I would fall hard.
I kept silence in my anger
For I could not admit
—least of all to her
That she knew me too well,
That she spoke truth.

Now I admit
—though only to myself,
That I am as susceptible as any
To human weakness.
I do not understand how I can be so driven,
So obsessed—
And over what?
One who has barely tolerated me;
One flawed in many ways.
Yet what I would not give for his sake!
Still I am angered—
Now more than ever,
At the foolish things that humans do
Merely to be with one another.
Still I am angered
At how well I can endure,
How well I can pretend,
Even how happy I can be
And how well I can go on with life,
While my thoughts are so far away.
I have fallen hard
And do not know which is more foolish:
    my fall,
    or my pretense.
Though I finally confessed
(Yet surely understated)
I still pretend to be immune
To all the rest of the world—
And only appear the stranger for it.

Alone I'd hoped I'd be spared this Monday