Poem - Fragile Ego

[kokopelle]

The poem “Fragile Ego” is about a problem that nearly cripples me. Allow me to share some background first. During an arts festival weekend I received many compliments on my photography and dance. This was nearly wiped out during a single incident at a house party. I was attempting to dance in a style that is like swing, but different. I was doing my best when my dance partner pardoned herself from the dance stating that she was tired and dizzy. I was crushed. At that moment my rational side could easily explain why she felt that way. I was sloppy in my dance, throwing in more twirls than the style called for, or perhaps more than she was used to. It was zero fun for her. My ego wouldn’t hear this, and I did not dance again that evening. A cloud hung over me the rest of the weekend as I considered myself to be a failure. Why? It is my fault, and the poem “Fragile Ego” explores the dynamics of praise vs. condemnation / ego vs. reality.


Fragile Ego
Poem for Day 133 – 20150513

Allow me to annunciate,
I do not hold you accountable.
It is my fragile ego's fault
that I crushed in defeat.
I've heard the praise,
rained down on me,
but they matter nothing
when you impact me.

Why do you count more,
millstone around my neck,
when other's compliments
are in comparison light as air?
I've given you this weapon,
honed sharp in the shadows.
The waiting despair of broken self
plots against the whole of me.

You speak with a voice ordinary,
volume normal to other's ears,
but to my senses your words
scream condemnation upon me.
A few gasped words from my mouth
bloodied and bruised:
you know not what you do
when I am already incomplete.

I stand here afflicted,
harmed in ways inconceivable.
I seem to stand, no change perceivable,
but in my heart I am inconsolable.
Your knife cuts deep,
inflicting wounds you cannot see.
Walking wounded led to death,
ego defeated at my own hand.

© 2015. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved