For the First Time (A Year Ago)

They have this breakfast

In a place of tradition

A place of my past

They try to entice you

To fit into a box

And I knew the boxes that would call to me

How'd they all say they knew me

Or my parents

Remembering a childhood I knew didn't exist

But still smiled uneasily

Shaking hands with shaking hands

Looking for some place to sit

I found a place to munch on bits of fruit

Nervous ticks and wary glances

As I sat, steadily silent in the temple of former refuge

It became internal torture

Breath racing, heart cacophonous

And there you sat, somehow beside me

Serene and smiling

You knew what hid behind the curtains

You, like I, had seen the charade

But we wore our robes and scars differently

Though as you spoke, it was clear

We had more in common

Than I, at first,

Could tell

Crumbling stone, a lone heretic

In the halls of the heralded holy

Their judging eyes and condescension

Circled around me

A calf among the golden pride

Their smiles sharpened for the occasion

So when the speaker got up

To offer positions within the status-quo

You must have noticed that strange fear

From the corner of my eye to yours

And beneath the white, plastic tablecloth,

So only we would know,

You held my hand

Silent, unassuming

And everything I

Needed to know

I was not alone