Lessons in Bitterness

Some days, it’s especially hard not to think
the milk of human kindness has curdled,
the same nights that all I could have said
ricochets in the echo chamber of my head

I’ll replay alternate scenarios or conversations
letting my good friends and dear relations know
in a few unambiguous words, just how I truly feel:
‘You’re false, jealous and, yes, a spiritual vampire.’

Or, I’ll read out my mounting laundry list of grievances
real and imagined, petty slights I pretended not to notice
Yet, I ruefully realize, that more and more of my affairs
are sorted in this state between fitful waking and dreaming

Until the ratio of fictitious exchanges outweighs
the sustaining, authentic communication I crave
and I wonder, before this metaphoric acid reflux
with its telltale regurgitation of all I’ve swallowed

Did I irritate my condition with undue expectations
or am I outdistancing past selves and associations?
Most likely both… but I also suspect this shedding
of itchy skin must conceal a nascent interiority.

© Yahia Lababidi

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