Abbi Erbacher

Staring Contest

when you look in the mirror

do you ever have that...that sense of detachment

that girl i’m looking at, that can’t be me

no her eyes are too brown

her lips are a little too chapped

no, that can’t be me

that detachment

to me, it comes to me first from the eyes

my eyes feel as if they aren’t part of me anymore

i become a third party to this stare down

these twins

they can’t stop staring

something is wrong, but what is it?

she stares too hard

or her eyebrows scrunch up the wrong way

her smile seems crooked

why can’t i smile right?

i mean, why can’t she smile right?

when you look in the mirror

it’s hard to keep yourself sane staring into an abyss

why can’t i stop staring?

why can’t i pull myself from those woeful eyes

they stare at me

begging for help, to pull their detached eyes away from this madness

the cycle never ends

i don’t want to pull my eyes away but she tells me to

her eyes squint, her nose wiggles

anything to pull her eyes away from this reflective staring contest

Title

I first realized you wouldn’t like me back while I was writing shitty poetry

I was wondering why the words didn’t seem to work when I realized it was because of you

I want to live what I write in poetry with you

I want that type of love

Even the poetry that has the bad parts, because if there are bad parts there have to be good ones too