I can tell
As he’s talking that
He’s somewhere else.
I ask him about it
Without receiving
A clear answer.
Sometimes
Questions
Aren’t welcome.
It was over when
He started spouting
Jarringly vituperative
Untruths and fabrications
As if they were
Empirical facts.
So strange to think
That there used to be
A bright intellect there,
Furtively usurped by
All-encompassing fear
And absence of love.
A moment when an ordinary
Human being can no longer
Contain the inconsistencies,
Succumbing to
Formerly hidden impulses
With feral abandon.
He fails to see
The blatant inconsistencies
In what he says he believes
And what he does,
A detail which is completely
Lost on him,
As is much of his life,
A swirling mess of
Contradictions and dissonance,
Unreconciled,
Unwhole,
Unpleasant.
It all happened so fast,
Nobody was ready for it,
As evidenced by their
Random utterings,
Contemplations normally
Left for quieter moments
When others aren’t around.
A woman walks through
The room,
Trying to calm people down,
But they don’t listen,
Uncertainty being what it is.
Supervising yet another
Renovation to her mansion,
She hears a worker
Utter some words in a
Foreign tongue and
Quickly admonishes him
To speak English, without
Any consideration for
A fellow human being’s
Plight or life experience,
Ignoring the glaring reality
That not everyone has parents
Who read and write in
Their own native language,
Let alone a new one,
But it’s much easier to
Chastise someone for not
Being able to speak one’s
Preferred patter than
It is to understand
Their story.
He can see that
She loves doing this more
Than anything,
A dream finally
Identified, acted upon,
Yet not quite what
He thinks it should be.
He says something
Unhelpful.
What it must be like
To wake up every
Morning and know that
You have to defend a
Way of life shrouded
In secrets, untruths,
Misdirection, inauthenticity,
Points of view steeped in
Dissonance. Struggling to
Make things fit that
Were never meant to,
Pretending to be someone
You’re not, not a moment’s
Peace, suffocating artifice.
I’m not sure whether
He disapproves or
Is utterly perplexed
By what I’ve just said,
Although I’m certain
He doesn’t understand
Anything beyond his own
Unconscious reaction,
Empathy not being
One of his strong suits.
A flaring
Celestial body
Sucking everything in
Toward itself,
Unable to appreciate anything
But its own existence,
Nonreciprocal,
Alone,
Inflated.
