“And you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born” -John Lennon
When you see me, you see yourself:
Love elongated, and nearly destroyed by years,
By absence, misunderstood and unacknowledged
Longing, disappointment, hatred, and grief,
Your most loved face floating down into the yellow leaf,
With a slow, long echoing, wind bent sigh,
More crinkly, but the same look in the eye,
That look by which the poet accuses
The lover of so many things involving himself,
Infinite vulnerability weaving infinitely fine ruses;
When I see you seeing me—
I know what you are thinking: Look, he
Survives. Is still himself. Thinks about things.
Still gets up in the morning. Just like me.