They made it pass or fail after the fact.
They saw I showed up, knew I tried,
But the learnings were too hard to earn a grade.
I have only gained the dimmest grasp
Of why I behave as I do
And how others take me in --
Though I felt, at last, some boulders move,
My lips found some warmth
Where something else had been,
Things bottled up that didn't know how to say
But came out, because they needed to anyway
In the cramped space between what others say --
Who saw it as reply, this long-denied jeremiad,
And smoothed the friction away
With anxious and thought-free fingers.
Still they wait for me to say
What it seems I need to say,
What I may discover somewhere along the way,
In some coin out in the open, some me I can't deny.
