Apparently

She’s gone again,

for a day,

two days,

or a month again

like last year.

Apparently I

am a difficult man to live with

she tells me

repeatedly.

When I was young I was told

to grow into whatever I pleased,

and I passed that to my children.

What a load of bunk,

I have come to find out!

Complete strangers tell me

that I am witty and charming,

and a marvelous cook.

Oh cooks of the world!

If you only believed them!

My distant friends

(that’s most of them)

smile politely at my humor,

then go about their way.

They do not know me at all.

I have one friend who sends me

beautiful African proverbs

that leave me half blind

with little clue as to

its possible meaning.

(To this end, any how.

There is no meaning without life,

without knowledge.)

I have an entire cemetary

of former friends.

Some were killed,

and some killed themselves.

I was murdered by my mother

when I was 15,

so in turn

I killed her too.

Many times I have been told

that I was made in God’s image,

so why then

am I also told

how flawed I am

by the very same people?

Apparently,

I am wounded.

I have burned through

three to four therapists in

my day.

One by age,

one by money,

and one by frustration.

Who knows what happened

to the other one,

institutionally.

Apparently I

am talented.

Do not let those closest to me

hear you repeat that.

They’d never let me live it down.