We Had Issues

She pretends to see me

but when she hears me

I see anxiety in her skin

 

Does my impression hurt me

the more times you say

that I am a Being

for the wrong reasons?

 

She asks her reflection:

Is your Being important enough to see it

rather than as something else

if there is any beauty in it at all?

Is your beauty worth keeping

if you were a guaranteed Being forever?

 

She tells me I address reflections

because I take myself too seriously,

thinking existence has no meaning

 

but it doesn’t, she says,

unless you are willing to throw it away

when you die

what else, I say

You fool, she says

I am going to live forever

 

If I were to live forever I wish

I could know in advance

so that I knew for sure,

no foolin’, there was no reason

to take offense

at horrendous designs

or works of chance

but that there was reason

calculated

in advance of our being in such

a lowly state of existence

 

her eyes are hot and red

and with a blast of breath

she says,

you will die a lonely death

with a brain in your head