I know you might be sick of hearing it;
I know it seems redundant,
Vapid,
And attention seeking;
But I need you to understand,
Since I’m choosing to share with you,
Choosing YOU as the gatekeeper
Of my reality:
Please.
When I say
I have the best roomies,
With or without specifications of
Meals made,
Thoughtful gifts,
Kind words,
Fragile peace;
What I’m really doing
Is failing to find ways
To thank them for dealing:
With me,
With my mess
(Inside and out);
Failing to beg:
Please don’t go.
I need you.
I’m sorry.
When I tell you something I’ve done
(Always self-consciously played down),
I’m not bragging-
I’m forcing myself to recognize
My own merit,
My own worth;
Making it solid.
When I wonder at my friends,
It is not about status.
It is my continuous amazement
That such fantastical creatures
Choose to visit my demimonde
And invite my dark into their halls.
When I share a photo of the sky,
The sea,
A road,
Bricks:
I am not trying to be artsy or deep.
I am having an experience and
I want to spread it:
Like dandelion seeds,
Like influenza;
I want it to repeat 24 times a second
Across the aether;
As if a singularity could be captured
Inside a maple leaf.
Please understand:
Every night I post
‘Today was a good day’
Is not a night I am deaf
To the myriad evils of the world,
It is a night I go to bed believing
The next day might just be worth facing.
If I sound naively,
Blindly,
Childishly
Chipper to you-
It is because every text that I can conjure
The good into being
Is a suicide note going unwritten.
It is not to impress you.
It is to convince myself.
Why, you might ask,
Do I not just write it in
The paper traps
I fill boxes, shelves, floorspace with?
Why foist them on you?
Because, dear contact,
My joys are like the bogeyman:
They aren’t real if no one sees them,
And I stopped trusting my sight long ago.
So forgive me these trifles,
The hedges of pixelated ink;
They are not meant to raise me up,
They are to keep the darkness out.
Royal Rose 