(7/20/2004)
Why must we be puffed up until we’re floating above it all,
then brought down until we sink?
Why not just be?
Expectations are an ocean
an Endless void between us
I’d rather not see what lives down there
especially those scary glow-in-the-dark fish
tamer than they appear.
It should be easy enough not to look, I thought
but with one toe in water, I’ve suddenly drowned
and I wake up freezing
obsessing over everything they said
and all the little demands unsaid
that the words imply.
Be more agressive.
-but-
Be more polite.
You should be more open.
-but-
“You can just keep to yourself!”
Too good
and Never good enough–
it’s enough to make anyone throw up
trying to meet everyone’s contradictory expectations.
So I throw up my hands
and say, “Forget it.
I won’t bend to pressures from either side.
I will just be.”
And so I become an island–
having pushed all else away–
but I see I’m surrounded by water
that great big void of expectations
that separates me from the mainland shore.
And then I remember–
I don’t know how to swim.
