Reflections

I’ve never really seen myself as anything more than this

someone broken, in need of repair.

I’ve never really believed that I would have any more than this

alone and aching and wishing that I was someone else.

I thought that I could be all the things that I never was

someone who someone needed, someone who was strong.

I thought that I could overcome

because someone believed in me.

Whether or not you did or didn’t

wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

You were never going to see me

any differently than I saw myself.

It’s been a year and in that year

I’ve ridden the roller coaster to here.

I’ve closed off and shut down and can only see

my face in this funhouse mirror.

I can vividly recall of the times that I silently turned

and covered up my scars.

And you never came looking because you were too busy

nursing all of your own.

We were too broken people trying to fill

the spaces in those empty rooms.

We should have turned around

that first morning on the road.

When springtime in the city came

and we packed up all our things.

We forgot that the crucial thing to hold

was each other instead of ourselves.

We pushed and pushed each day and each year

until we couldn’t see each other anymore.

I wonder if you can see yourself now

no part of me looks the same.