Their faces are serious; do the words match?
It could be politics, or love, or work,
Or a million other topics less serious
Or less trivial; but they are an island
Of considered conversation in
A noisy sea of chatter, so I hear nothing.

I am silent. Their hands move emphatically,
Their faces lend weight to their words,
But I am still save my right hand:
It makes words without sound.

Their words move from lips to ears,
From mind to mind, from human to human.
Mine merely rebound off the page
Into my open eyes, moving only
From subconscious to conscious,
From future to past via the wet ink
Of the present, from idea to form.

They are an even number, but I am odd,
As always, the part that is never
Part of the whole. Again I go unnoticed.
This is what I want, and yet I fear
That this is all I will get.

There must be a happy medium somewhere,
Surely. Perhaps this is my opportunity
To find it at last, now that I know,
Finally, what I actually want.

What I fear, primarily, is my inability
To rebuild bridges, and to construct
New ones across the cracks in my soul
That I have spent too many years papering.

My face is serious, and my words match,
But there is no second face opposite mine
To mirror that seriousness, or to
Give me any words apart from my own.

05/07/2016

Posted on 07/02/2016
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