Shadowlight
12-02-2019, 03:32 AM
Today I was the girl I used to be.
As a child I watched people at the commissary,
just stood there staring:
Watched loosely held hands.
She wide-eyed gawking longingly at diamond rings behind the pure white counter,
and him nonchalant, scraping with tooth-worn nails at chalky ketchup.
Watched a shaking finger spell hysteria
(I just cant take it anymore)
at down-fixed eyes,
a little boy counting cocoons of lint nestled in blue matted carpet,
trying to focus on some sort of stillness.
Watched unabashedly, mining into opalled cataracts
vacant milky whites,
not noticing me noticing, with clarity,
such deep opaqueness.
...but when they would notice...
when the observed would see the observer.
Well, those moments
were when I felt most
the heart-panging stab,
of having always been alone.
but more often, I was invisible,
I hid so easily in a crowd.
Today, today I was the girl I used to be.
I recognized her from across the divide of generic conversations and pleasantries
shared among her closest.
"Are you thirsty, would you like an apricot iced tea?"
"Work isn't work if you love what you do"
"Im so sorry. Try to keep an open door,
one day she'll come back into loving arms and that will be all that mattered"
She hoisted relationships as if they were feathers.
Spoke just what they needed to hear.
Coaxed each one into her trust.
There never was a person she could call a stranger.
To this day, she always hid so well in crowds.
As a child I watched people at the commissary,
just stood there staring:
Watched loosely held hands.
She wide-eyed gawking longingly at diamond rings behind the pure white counter,
and him nonchalant, scraping with tooth-worn nails at chalky ketchup.
Watched a shaking finger spell hysteria
(I just cant take it anymore)
at down-fixed eyes,
a little boy counting cocoons of lint nestled in blue matted carpet,
trying to focus on some sort of stillness.
Watched unabashedly, mining into opalled cataracts
vacant milky whites,
not noticing me noticing, with clarity,
such deep opaqueness.
...but when they would notice...
when the observed would see the observer.
Well, those moments
were when I felt most
the heart-panging stab,
of having always been alone.
but more often, I was invisible,
I hid so easily in a crowd.
Today, today I was the girl I used to be.
I recognized her from across the divide of generic conversations and pleasantries
shared among her closest.
"Are you thirsty, would you like an apricot iced tea?"
"Work isn't work if you love what you do"
"Im so sorry. Try to keep an open door,
one day she'll come back into loving arms and that will be all that mattered"
She hoisted relationships as if they were feathers.
Spoke just what they needed to hear.
Coaxed each one into her trust.
There never was a person she could call a stranger.
To this day, she always hid so well in crowds.