Starved
The world is full of hungry people.
Not for bread…
for reassurance, simplification,
for me made digestible.
They’re hungry.
I’m feeding.
Some more, some less…
always eating.
They want easy answers,
comfort that costs them nothing.
They need me smaller, simpler…
my edges filed down,
my difference translated,
my complexity smoothed
so they can nod along
without effort.
How many allowances must I make?
How many times do I over-explain
or under-explain
so they think they understand?
How many masks,
how many soft words
to steady their nerves?
I’m a foreign citizen
in the country of everyone else,
speaking a language that is mine
but sounds wrong to native ears.
My born accent…
the one I use when I forget…
toned down for decades
to be understood.
And that’s just one example.
Because I tone down
everything,
for almost everyone.
What’s your thoughts?
Blank looks when I answer honestly.
How did you get there?
From here.
Later, they arrive too…
and that got boring.
They want a certain reply.
Give it.
Boring faster.
What’s your thoughts?
I dunno.
What would you do?
I’d look at that,
pull in that,
account for them,
and only then consider those.
Blank looks again.
How did you get there?
From here.
Thoughts, hidden.
Philosophy, hidden.
Personality, hidden…
known only to a few,
toned down for the rest
so I can pass as one of them.
Everyone eating their fill
of the palatable version…
the one that doesn’t trouble them,
doesn’t stretch them,
doesn’t ask anything back.
A life spent translating myself
into small, swallowable pieces…
always feeding their hunger
while mine goes unseen.
- UpsilonA