subtext

I dislike the me I see

from others’ conversation,

from the echo checks I send,

simple pings through the waters.

Shallow, I know, to be so

self-obsessed. Yet, to know

yourself is to know what

absence you are not.

We are all some other,

even to ourselves—

the not knowing becomes

a line we define,

the cliff edge we look from

into the distant hills.