I hate to admit it but I’m kind of a solipsistic person. It’s not that I don’t like people–I take a strong interest in trying to help others (particularly if it involves telling them what to do.)
But I am just awful in social situations – parties, gatherings, even sometimes work settings. To some degree, this may have something to do with not being completely at ease with either my “public” persona or private persona.
At any rate, here’s a kind of gloomy sonnet about this kind of public/private disconnect.
Because I am now linking this post to dVerse Poets Pub Raising the Bar for critiquing, I am going to put up two versions of this poem, an older and newer. (I think the older may be better, but it’s also the one with which I am more familiar.) They are both a bit self-pitying, although that may be something that makes them universal.
The first is the older version:
Pretending
After years, pretending to be what you’re not
becomes a nature; a second skin
coating you like a kind of make-up, caught
in your pores, nestled in your grooves, a twin
of features, caked, you need not reapply.
But habits, faces, fail and it wears thin,
until, worn through, you can hardly try
anymore. Too wary, weary, the word
“cagey” describes so much of what you’ve been,
the opposite of free-flying bird,
while unheard, and hardly there within,
is all you’ve been saving, what you hid, why
you did this, what wasn’t supposed to die.
Newer:
Pretending
After years, pretending to be what you’re not
becomes a nature; a second skin
coating you like a heavy make-up, caught
in your pores, nestled in your grooves, a twin
of features, caked, you need not reapply.
Sometimes the habit fails, pretense wears thin,
that face that clung is suddenly wrung dry–
you don’t want to re-affix, but the word
“cagey” catches so much of what you’ve been–
the opposite of free-flying bird–
that, though you wish more than anything
to be seen, take wing; fretful, you still try
to keep tight all within. Oh me. Oh my.
If you are interested in my poetry, check out my poetry book, Going on Somewhere (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco, cover by Jason Martin) on Amazon.
If you are interested in my elephants, check out my children’s book, 1 Mississippi, on Amazon.
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