Like the party game two truths and a lie,
I shape my story as I start to speak.
I hold the lie much closer to the truth
than I do the truth, which is more suspect
in its simplicity. Fear is my truth:
it trembles like a slowly failing heart,
or a delicate lace stained with red wine.
That I lie to myself is another—
But who doesn’t? Everyone is a hero
in their own comic tragedy, no doubt
a story shaped like epic destiny:
to rise from nothing, to slip past the guards
who watch the one unbending truth of life—
to be ignored as I walk to the dark.
(July 19, 2024)
subtext 