How many people know you?
Know how many times you roll up
   the cuffs of your sleeves when it’s warm?
Or know how many sugars
   you take in your tea?
Or how you handle yellow bees?  
How many people know what
   you tell yourself before you go to sleep?
Do you count sheep?
Or the stars on your ceiling?  
Or your scars that are healing?
Do people know you have those?
Nobody knows.

How many people know you?
Know how much you resent the gap
   between your teeth?
Or what number you group things in
   when you’re counting?
Or what the smile on each side
   of your face means?
Or where to find the seams
Where you’ve been torn open
   just a bit.
Where those little slits
   under your raised eyebrow are.
Do people look hard?

How many people know you?  
Know about how much having dirt under
   your fingernails drives you mad?
Or how you don’t like to
   drive in the rain?
And how you add brown sugar
   to everything?
And how you wish you had wings
To fly away over all these people
   who think they know you
When they don’t.
They don’t know the first thing.
But they never will.
You won’t let them in.

How many people know you?
Sometimes,

I
certainly
don’t.