NARCISSUS.

You dream of your Ex.
The dark hair, the smile,
all of the same composites I, too, own
but hers are purer, as they should be
for my own visual is murky

At any moment: a scowl, a snide expression
so many things to disrupt that image
of perfection you carry around like
a Polaroid, a talisman:
here is my happy girlfriend.
Never displeased, never inappropriate.
Never a want or care beyond what is
given to her: lovely.


You dream of the old days, of simpler times
of which there were alot of, then.
Not like now.
Now things are complicated,
the messy ball and all
of the other metaphors we use
to explain how this is not
going well.
Did she understand you? No.
But perhaps that wasn't necessary.
Maybe fawning and idolatry were
enough to keep you going.
That wondrous mirror,
ever extolling virtues,
the pleasantries laid out before you
for the taking.
But not this, not I-

I am not that still pond of Narcissus
placing your pretty visage
next to God's creations of waterlily
and skimmer bug.

I am instead, once again, too murky
Here is the algae, thickly overgrown
Here is the heat and the smell of swamp
instead.


But this is Beauty too,
remember.