Lies (Prompt)
I’m fine. I’m just tired.
Don’t be nervous. You’ll be ok.
You have to be more patient.
Smug smiles of quarters
gleaming beneath my pillow in the morning.
No, you can’t help. Go to bed.
Sunday morning let us pray.
Head back, asking forgiveness from the rafters.
Everything is fine. Don’t worry.
I’m just tired.
There’s nothing to be scared of.
.
Parents don’t lie
exactly. I have always found
shreds of my beliefs
in the untruths sewn into my neural pathways.
I hear them in my own voice,
even the one I only use
in the nakedness of lovers
or poetry.
.
It’s fine.
I’m just tired.
No, I’ve got this.
All the ways I have worshipped at temples
in whose gods I never believed.
I believe you.
My mouth wanting you in ways
my heart had fleeting dreams about.
Sometimes, they reversed.
Words like want, forever, trust,
(do I say it?) love.
Don’t be scared.
You’re ok. You’re ok. You’re ok.
.
Listen – I don’t know what to call
the things I’ve told you.
I do not lie, I do not truth
exactly. I poem exactly.
I touch exactly. I pray exactly.
I will never know which pieces of me
you believe.
.
It’s fine.
You’ll be ok.
I trust you.
Don’t worry.
.
Forgive me.
