Stranger than before.

[Varenne Rodin]

I used to see your face
In every place
I used to go.
I never really knew it, though.

One day in an orange room
You returned, I don't know why.
Hiding in corners smiling and...frightened?
An alien I did not recognize.

Inside that face
I saw the place
the place I used to go
to rebel against everything I knew.

Talking to them
Your eyes said different words to me.
They couldn't see
the thing you were, so they were ok.

But I knew
your magic was still inside.
Magic and bad black shame
staring holes in me.

You had gotten so fat over the years
Or you just seemed fat
But not really fat.
Just a distorted melted mess.

How could I love someone
with such a seemingly fat and sinister face?
Someone dark and mad and pouring out hate...
paused and gone and held away on purpose.

But I do.

[Hawkman]

I don't know... It's probably because I've been listening to, and rehearsing a load of old 1960s Vietnam related protest songs, by the likes of Tom Paxton and Arlo Guthrie, that when reading this I kind of hear the spoken on pitch, guitar-backed monologue in the narrative voice. It's very rhythmic with sort of comic asides sprinkled through it. I even get a hint of Johnny Cash! The whole reads rather like a lyric. I'm not sure that it's great poetry, but it's very entertaining.

Try not to moult! - H

[Varenne Rodin]

I appreciate that, H. I wanted to break some rules for the sake of that odd rhythm. I'm a terrible poet, but I like story telling. Thank you for reading. :)

[Jerrybaldy]

Welcome back. As real and therefore as great as before.

[AuntShecky]

I just saw a moving documentary on domestic violence on HBO, and there are elements in this poem that remind me of it.
I do hope I'm wrong, though, and if I'm not, I hope your poem is strictly fictional.

And I also hope you visit us NitLetters more often.

Auntie

[Mohammad Ahmad]

It is rather of blaming because of someone behavior, sometimes one gonna mysterious to be out of use in his time.
Mayst go healthy with you! Thanks

[Varenne Rodin]

Thank you, Jerry and Auntie. It's nice to talk to you both again.

Auntie, there was no domestic violence, just a lot of mental gymnastics. Now the only thing left of that friendship is an amorphous blob of a ghost that shows up in my dreams once in a while. I don't even know what the guy looks like anymore. I just imagine that time has ravaged his body, but never his sharp mind. :)

[Varenne Rodin]

Mohammad, I think you're right.

[tonywalt]

I thought the poem was about yourself ( a part of personality)

[Varenne Rodin]

Haha. That would have made for an interesting backstory to this, Tony! Alas, no. I have not become a blobby faceless mass over the years, and I am so delicate toward people that I doubt I could project hate if I tried. This was just about somebody I used to know. It's about how when you lose touch with a person, after many many years, your memories of them can become distorted. Trying to picture what they have become is like trying to catch a clear reflection in a pond on a rainy day.

I wish him well.