I’m sick of victim poems, those mylar balloons
That outlive their closets … still, the oracle said
There was nine years of karma to clear today,
And mine is full of clothes I tried to wear
And nine years is a lot of signs to ignore,
A lot of half-full goblets to pour down the drain,
When the trauma still accrues to the scenery
Like graffiti on a tree, so I can recognize what used to be.
It was a garden-variety con in the end,
All of them in on extracting what they could
Until I said “no more.” Then smooth as silk they fell off
The radar, and not one has returned to take their bow.
But the town is shadowed with a kind of shroud
That shows instead of hides what isn’t there,
What I thought was true and believed could be
When I thought that they could feel it for me.
But memories never have to be what was real.
We never pause in our pursuit of the truth,
The eternal we’re always searching for, as the layers
Fall away, from what has never changed.
I’m left with what remains, of the world
I used to have to myself. Now it’s only me,
Somehow larger for all that’s been released.
Our questions always save us, because unanswered.
