Why I Am No Longer Listening

I can’t speak to this confusion,

to intimacy as desire, as retreat.

My answers would be propaganda,

numbered clauses of social contracts:

1)flattery, 2) betrayal, 3) gossip.

I cannot face the fact of another person—

argument, needs,

the weight of hope or disappointment.

I’m mesmerized at images of water’s ripple in a mirror,

locked in gestures of the affable, the indifferent—

as if injury could be lessened

by civility or sleight of hand.

I know the lie in this.

It’s a study in phantom pain,

a second version of the facts.

There is ruin where I stand, when I depart.

And I have no apology but good-bye.