The Other Side
They pound on the door,
pound on the walls,
echoing gunshots through
the empty room
with me in it.
Let us in!
Let us in!
They slide notes
under the door:
Are you okay?
Please come out!
WE LOVE YOU!
But I can’t be sure
if those are the truth,
so I don’t know
if I should entrust
them with my own truths:
like how I don’t know
if we’ve ever really been friends
or if we’ve just silently agreed
to hold each other back;
and how I can’t talk
about death without quoting someone
else, even though I think about
it myself all the time;
and how I play with my body
every day, imagining
all the things I cannot do,
cannot say.
If I tell them these things,
or anything else,
they will try to help
me in their own selfish ways,
and then they’ll tell
me all about their own bad days;
and James Herlihy wrote that
I mustn’t let the demons
of others breed
with my own
or else
I will be forever
imprisoned by the monsters
it makes;
but
it has already started,
so
is this the end?
This was inspired by a letter from James Herlihy to Anaïs Nin, which I read in Trapeze: the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1947-1955 (published earlier this year; the sixth installment in the MUST-READ series of diaries from one of the most tragically underexposed authors in history.)
Love always,
your Mister
Lonely Hearts Chapel 