Today I thought about how it's true
that all we really have is ourselves,
and that made me feel lonely.
Self-centeredness feels as inevitable
as it is embarrassing.
Back when I had voices inside my head
attached to inanimate objects,
it was a little better.
Figurines never hurt my feelings.
My mom told me that she listened
to what I was saying,
pretending she was asleep on the couch.
It doesn't feel like a violation
because I don't remember what I said.
I don't remember if I made up happy endings.
I don't remember if I made up any endings at all,
but I remember using greeting cards
on the dining room table
like vessels on a national speedway.
Have you ever thrown away a letter?
I have.
Is there anything worse?
The letters I've kept,
I never re-read. The letters I've sent,
I never remember.
About Me
- Beth
- From "Letters to a Young Poet," Rainer Maria Rilke: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
