XXI. I Am Not What You See.

It begins, always,

with the eyes.

Not mine.

Yours.

A flicker,

like glass meeting Shadow

and misnaming it Light.

You adjust.

And I appear:

not as I am,

but as something the world

has primed you to see.

I become known

by someone

who does not know me.

And that visibility:

a kind of trespass.

No longer safely out of focus,

I am now a spark.

A question.

An omen blooming

too soon.

It’s not pride.

I despise it.

The way a deer despises

the gloved hand

on the rifle,

the moment just before.

I feel myself

begin to bend,

filed under intrigue,

pinned with words

I did not say.

You think I’m arrogant.

You think I’ve spun a whole mythology

from the glint in your eyes.

But I know what it is

to become legible

in the wrong language.

And translation

is a kind of violence.

You blink,

and I am rewritten.

No longer person,

but prophecy.

A riddle.

The inevitable disappointment

beneath someone’s next fascination.

I want to scream,

shed my body

like a coat.

Do something ugly,

grotesque,

or shatter something precious,

to unmake the thought

that I am beautiful,

in that awful, ruinous way

where being seen

is a kind of possession.

But even rebellion

gets romanticized.

Even rupture becomes art.

Even this

will be called a performance.

And I,

I just want to be.

Be who I am.

And who I am is,

unfortunately—

brilliant,

in that exhausting,

unsought way.

I see the thread unravel

before anyone admits

it was ever a sweater.

I translate discomfort

into metaphor.

It’s the only way I can breathe.

You’ll think I’m being dramatic.

But I’ve spent years

watching people

name my silence

before I even speak.

And it’s easier,

honestly,

to be mistaken

for strangely distant

than devoured

by someone’s attention.

So I stay quiet.

Not out of secrecy,

but mercy.

You'll misunderstand that too.

(They always do.)

For a time,

I tried to explain.

Tried to say:

I’m not shy,

I’m not coy,

I’m only bracing.

Only holding back

the flood.

But people love a mystery

more than they love a truth

that does not flatter.

Sometimes

I dream of being plain.

Unluminous.

To enter a room

and leave

without being noticed at all.

Instead,

I become a story.

A mirror.

The ache you mistake

for poetry.

See,

when you expect brilliance,

even greatness

feels like not enough.

But when you expect nothing?

God,

then I get to soar.

So I give you nothing.

No flicker.

No clue.

I press my voice

behind my teeth.

A sealed chamber.

Humming heat.

Then wait

for the moment to pass.

Because I know

what’s coming:

the cruel curiosity,

the intimate tests of power.

I have lived

beneath the magnifying glass

long enough

to fear sunlight.

But books—

books never ask

what I meant.

They do not reach

for my reaction

to know who they are.

They sit,

quiet, intact,

asking nothing.

Proof

that existence

need not perform.

And I—

I would like

to live that way too,

I think.

To be

and not explain.

To open

and not be devoured.

To love

without being consumed

or worshipped.

But I am not made

of paper and spine.

I am the breath

between chapters,

listening,

folding,

discerning.

Not a vessel

for your meaning.

I am the reader

unwilling to be read.

And in that silence,

I am free.

For what it’s worth,

-Charlene Iris

One thought at a time.

One truth at a time. 

Because some epiphanies stay with you.