Just look at me now.
All gift wrapped, and such
Do you like what you see?
Cause I don’t, very much.

                    As the lying won’t cease
                    And my truth is horrific,
                    You don't want to ask me
                    To be more specific. . .

So I’ll say goodbye
And tell you to go;
Don’t look for a truth
You won’t want to know.

I'm the man women write poems about.
No, not the love poems.
Not the ones with a tear and a smile.
There're no daisies, or roses.
No dances in the moonlight
I'm not the Mr. Right,
And we never have the perfect love.

I'm also not the bad boy
That they knew was wrong.
The smile and the wink
That lead them to what they think
Was the greatest year of their life.
And the worst.
I'm not nearly that exciting,
Or simple.

That just leaves one more
That women rhyme about.
The one that seemed perfect,
The one who they thought
THEY would break.
The one that tricked them.

The one who fixed them,
For a time.
And got them to believe in something,
Again.
But that's just the beginning of the poem,
Prior to en media res.
The rest
Is about how they were SO wrong.

Somewhere I become the villain
Because I held their hand
Then let go.
It's not something I intend.
Just what continually seems
To happen.
I emerge unscathed.
THEY don't emerge.

Or if they do,
It's not the same.
Those poems are about being wrecked
By the guy they thought cared.
The guy they thought would stay.
The guy that came so close
And then just drifted away.

But the tragedy, for me,
Is that I believe
All of those things too.
I DO care.
I AM the right guy.
I guess the best way to fool someone
Is to fool yourself first.

In the time you were gone, I found myself filled with extra space. Nothing too obvious; not gaping holes in my stomach, nor chunks from my arm. Rather, they were minute cracks that ensnared me. These unwanted holes appeared at random; when someone spoke of sandwiches, I felt a soft ***** in the back of my mind. When I encountered a full moon, I felt a throb in the tips of my fingers. And sometimes, when I caught sight of a dollar bill, a pang of nostalgia bit me somewhere deep down in my chest. This discomfort never lasted long. These cracks never formed one excruciating pain – the kind that fully consumes, but diminishes over time like a large hole in a wall that will soon be filled in. These cracks I felt, this empty space, it affected me demurely. As some cracks were filled in, new ones spread forth. My disrepair did not increase nor decrease in the years to come, but rather, spread out to different locations, as I patched and filled along the way. My foundation as a person grew perpetually flawed, yet remained stable enough to stay upright. My eventual remedy was to simply remember this; I am a structure made of concrete. Wear me down, and all you get is more concrete. In this way, it was okay that you were gone. In this way, I discovered the weight of time and also, the art of saying goodbye.

When I was six, my grandmother enrolled me in ballet class.

     This choice was the first of many attempts to negate my tomboyish nature. Perhaps, she’d hoped that instead of collecting insects and cutting apart Barbie dolls, the pirouettes and glitzy attire might spin me. I was spun, eventually, but that had nothing to do with dance.

     Blame it on my peers; blame it on the tutus. Truth be told, my time was generally spent out of sight; but I got my kicks sneaking a reptiles home, playing with dinosaurs - never dolls, or - of course - taming earwigs. Alone.

     I don’t remember the classes, or the other little girls. In fact, the sole (no pun intended) impression left behind by those dance classes was why they'd end.
It was to be my first recital. The whole class had been coaxed into flashy leotards and uncomfortable tights. We’d been instructed to skip in a single file line onto the stage, which catalyzed my predicament, as I hadn’t a clue about the routine.

     As the girl preceding me danced into view, I floundered in terror – my turn had arrived. I fumbled along in her wake, passing the curtain and reaching the stage.

     The stage!

     An arena of ruthless lights, unveiling my anonymity. I faltered in terror, registering the audience registering me. How vast the auditorium looked against my tiny body! Betrayed by those blinding stage lights, I cowered at the mercy of the whole world.

     The instructor, a faceless female, was showing whose boss as girls began skipping around me.

    And yet, there I stood. Petrified that moving forward negated any hope of escape. My proximity to the curtain merited two options... the bright side of the curtains, which would soon claim everyone else in the vicinity, or the dark. I engaged in a mental game of Tug-a-war that lasted all of about half a second.

     The dark curtains won.

     So, dodging around the obnoxious ballerinas, I descended back into safety. It mattered not where I went, as long as I put distance between myself and the audience. Distance between myself, and detection.

     At some point, I discovered a backstage crevice, in which darkness sheathed me. For, even at five, I understood dark and safety to be synonyms.

     So, I crawled inside, and I hid.

     I don’t remember who went seeking. Nor, do I know who found me. Nobody is a possibility; it was an “Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free” forfeit, perhaps. A rule that defeats the point of its own game. For at six, I was young enough to obey that “come out, come out, wherever you are” nonsense. But, such rules were dropkicked long ago.

     For, your existence – dear hide-and-seek – all but defines me. This game, that darkness, possesses my psyche.

     Some days, I ponder the uncertainty of memories. Vexed, for where memory dies, illusions are born. Illusions romanticizing reality – a reality in which I never came out, lost and unfound, a reality in which I’ll never come out, out, wherever I am. Hidden beneath the darkness.

     For, in truth, I have been hiding ever since.

I cannot put into words the sheer gravity of your soul meeting with mine.