The Me That You Do Not Know

In the world of words he slipped in and out softly like swimming in cool water,

A stone skimming across the calm, smooth surface. He liked it best at the end,

As the stone slowed and finally sank down deep, buried in this other world,

The feel of diving to the bottom of a pond. He knew he must always come up to breathe,

But he savored each sweet moment, the erotic feel of that cool water surrounding him.

He wanted to live there. He was at home in this smooth, cool world of words.

He wanted to stay, immersed in this place, and come to the surface only when he must,

But instead he lived in the hot and heavy world of air, struggled to breathe,

And longed for the feel of that other place, that other world that was his own,

The place where he was weightless and free, always twilight just beneath the surface.

In the world of air and people and noise he felt awkward and strange, too heavy.

He tried to touch the words there but it was like catching fireflies in his hands.

He might, with great effort, catch one or two but the rest were frightened away,

By the noise and shuffle, the constant mindless buzz of so much meaningless talk.

He could not escape the endless conversations, the jokes and wild laughter.

He hungered for the cool stillness of his own world just beneath the surface,

Where the words did not run from him, did not hide in the dark corners in fear.

He could put out his hands and touch them, caress each delicate one like some rare creature,

Stroking the soft feathers and feeling its downy folds, smoothing away its rough places,

Until it purred in his hands, soft and warm and at peace in his heart where they slept.

He had grown to despise this world of constantly moving and shuffling things,

To retreat from it at all costs, to touch no one and nothing that lived there.

He wore this over him like a banner, a dark epithet carved deep into his heart.

Do not come near me, do not touch me, if you come too close I will withdraw,

If you touch me you will not touch me, you will touch something else, someone else, something,

That is not me, something hard and strange, something different from the me that you do not know.

Do not come near me, do not touch me, there is only one who I let close enough to touch,

And she is far away. If you come too close you might break me, if you touch me I will run away,

And sink deep, so deep within me where you can never go, never find me, never touch me.

But the people in the world of hot and heavy air, of noise and neon lights could not read the,

Inscription he wore, could not or would not read the prologs to the books of people,

And so he lived in a constant state of retreat, hiding behind the ancient walls of his heart.

He wanted to tell them, to warn them in some way but he did not want to hurt them.

They were only rough, they were only callous, they were only vapid and shallow.

It was not their fault. They could not see the words flitting about his head,

Did not know the pains he took to love them, to touch them, to place them just there,

On the creamy, white page where they would dance no more in his mind and he could sleep,

And dream the dreams where he was not alone, the dreams of her lying so close in his arms.

He had never opened his gates before but she had never much bothered with doors.

She’d climbed his high and stony walls and slipped into his world like a whispered dream,

And he had known for the first time in his life that he was not afraid of her there.

He’d seen the words swirling around her, playing in her hair and curled about her name.

She had plunged into the cool and shadowy depths of him and made her home in the twilight.

Eric M. Petit