it is the play that runs in your head, the
stories mother told you of tomorrow days, how
handsome would win hidden beauty, masked
under the ashes and soot of reality’s light, happily
after ever days, white picket fences with the two
dogs in the yard; those stories that you tell yourself
what it means to be a woman or a man, the
comparison of these cast in the mirror back, paths
you chose and ignored, the neighbor’s greener lawn
and how you need that expensive car, how these things
define us, mold our truths to what we want to see,
they surround us, keep us prisoner, push the replay button.