poem

 Hide and Seek

It’s hard to keep coming up 

With new ways of saying 

What I mean without

Actually saying it. 

In the beginning 

I embraced the challenge—
It became a perpetual game

Of hide and seek,

Secretly hoping you would

Always eventually find me.

But one runs out

Of suitable hiding places 

You reach a point where

Everything you try

Leaves you dangerously exposed.

Soon enough my leg 

Is sticking out so far

From behind a sapling

You can see it 

From a mile away.

It stops being fun anymore.

There I am again!

Hoping you don’t notice 

My naked body

Standing on the other side 

Of your full length mirror

While you get ready for dinner.

And so I either 

Fall back on cliché

Or the metaphors get so weird

You need a separate metaphor

To explain them, meta-metaphors,

Which can take you

Places, I’ll you that,

But never with anyone else,

You’re on your own..

And I only really need to to say 

This one thing without

Actually saying it.

Just one thing.

Which means the unsaid thing

Could potentially be anything 

Which takes us straight to the realm 

Of clever summer tautologies

Where even this lonesome dog

Snoozing on the driveway or

This lost fly zizzing 

Disconsolately against my window 

Could be exactly what I mean 

6/24/24