Three-Way Mirror With Shadow

Originally posted 11/17/2009; originally titled “Three Men And A Shadow.”

I can see the kid I used to hate,
his arrogance, his secret shame
in lying about something
he’d done or not done,
thinking of girls,
of pills stolen
from the medicine drawer
and choked down
as he sweated grades,
expectations, failure;

it only takes
a head turn
to see the young husband
I used to scorn,
shuffling off ill-dressed to jobs
he thought beneath him,
finding ways
to smile at people
he thought neglected
his genius, avoiding evidence
of his own lazy thought.
I remember him
pacing off long nights
as the house piled higher
with things, things, things…

then face on, direct now,
to see the fat man:
gray and bloated,
reeking of smoke and disappointment,
imagining that what has worked in the past
will work again (even though
it never worked at all),
pretending all his choices
were the right ones;
staring at small screens
hoping the magic of certainty
will return, light up his fingers,
and illuminate the slowly dimming remainder
he knows is lessening
as he stares ahead,
stuck in his backstory.

Behind the mirror,
behind them all,
a shadow I always called
the Real Me:

a perfect fanatic,
holding fast
to the game of words
as his sole treasure
and source meaning.

Was it worth it
to go that route,
I wonder,
to turn away
and focus on
a vision
of a body of work
to be left behind
in the space I perhaps
should have been?

I should have
taken better care of these three.
The shadow I thought was the real me
would have been a better man
if I’d been better
to the men I pretended
I never was.

I can’t speak ill of
any of them.
Stroke their heads,
let them go,
think about what I am now:

a net loss,
bankrupt at the general business of living.
Regardless of what
I have claimed to be,
I have always been

a shadow
of my self.