The benefit of a couple of decades under your belt
is being able to see yourself in others out loud-
when you are young, it feels as if, there are no similar others-
no one else can see or understand who you are inside
but the fact of the matter is it takes a little distance…
a little time…actually being that person in that skin in that world
to notice that not only are you not alone but everyone else-
simply everyone else-
feels and thinks and believes that being understood
let alone truly being seen, is an impossibility-just like you (do).
Because of this desperate attention seeking
the youth don costumes that bellow grandiose versions of who
you wish that you were or who you want to be perceived to be
and not until you’ve been you for long enough
will you ever get tired enough
of pretending for your reflections everywhere who don’t care
because they are hiding just like you are but when the acting is through
and time is weighing on too, you shed all of those false markers for relief
not because perfection has been reached
but because acceptance has-
Until you can accept yourself, no one else stands a chance at doing so
and the cycle continues, very fragile people in very fragile forms
with extremely fragile egotistical needs
refusing to hug the others around them
because self blindness adds safe yet unnecessary boundaries
to our tiny tortured temporary reality…
