I can’t think of anything
more difficult than accepting
that the first thing you’ve ever known
and believed in,
the first thing, from birth,
is all false. Have the earth
pulled away from under you.

It’s more than cutting
the proverbial umbilical cord
more than leaving the nest
in your wobbly wings
more like a contradiction
you swallowed and can’t spit out,
so you have to undo the knot
from inside you, a million times
worse than waking up after
sleeping with the enemy and
you can’t take back the night
and you have to live with yourself
and your personal effects
be surrounded by the things you bought
with the interest earned after
banking your sacrifices
and you were struck with amnesia
and don’t even know who you are.
But you have to start from somewhere,
and it starts with a purge.

Remove yourself from the wrong
you are trying to make right
and address it from a distance, not
when you’re waist-deep in it.

If it’s not you,
you can leave it.
It’s is like a demon
who feeds on your insecurities,
and burrows in
the gaps of your self-esteem,
making you hate what you love,
making you fear what
you can’t live without.
You have to get out.

Because the first thing you’ve ever wanted
was to impress her,
it was the axiom
of your life and your choices, but
you’ve almost already conquered the world
and she’s still stepping all over you.

You’ve lived your one life
taking the world more seriously
than most, intent in
finding validation,
and if no one is home,
maybe it’s in the songs on the radio,
or corporate brand slogans,
or fictional characters from Murakami novels.
But you found it.

Only God knows how, but you did.
You didn’t hear it growing up,
so now that it’s done
you should tell your own self:
you’re all you’ve worked so hard at becoming,
you just have to get it from within.
.