Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies.
–Nelson Mandela
Lessons in Bitterness
Some days, it’s especially hard not to think
the milk of human kindness has curdled,
the same nights that all I could have said
ricochets in the echo chamber of my head
I’ll replay alternate scenarios or conversations
letting my good friends and dear relations know
in a few unambiguous words, just how I truly feel:
‘You’re false, jealous and, yes, a spiritual vampire.’
Or, I’ll read out my mounting laundry list of grievances
real and imagined, petty slights I pretended not to notice
Yet, I ruefully realize, that more and more of my affairs
are sorted in this state between fitful waking and dreaming
Until the ratio of fictitious exchanges outweighs
the sustaining, authentic communication I crave
and I wonder, before this metaphoric acid reflux
with its telltale regurgitation of all I’ve swallowed
Did I irritate my condition with undue expectations
or am I outdistancing past selves and associations?
Most likely both… but I also suspect this shedding
of itchy skin must conceal a nascent interiority.