A View Of Self (Poetry)

However close you stand to me
you’ll never see inside
I hide myself so consciously
in pity and in pride

Although you may glimpse something small
and guess one secret’s out
it hardly counts for much at all
you should preserve some doubt

I’m seldom quite the way you think
it’s all to do with light
that passes over in a blink
there’s nothing black and white

I take a photograph so thin
while much goes on behind
thin worn façade of aging skin
that masks an unquiet mind

Where you are now is near enough
as close as you will get
stay where it’s smooth — avoid the rough
love’s boundaries are set