🌀Random Reflections: Part 2.

🌀Random Reflections: Part 2.

A conversation of me.
Two poems by Eric Pollok.


poem two: The Face Beneath.

I’ve been here the whole time.
You just forgot what I look like.

Under the polish,
under the rehearsed pauses,
under the copies of everyone else’s smiles
I’ve been waiting.
Not hiding.
Not sulking.
Just… watching you disappear.

You call me dangerous.
You call me costly.
You call me “too much” before anyone else has the chance.
It’s easier that way.
Easier to say I am the problem
than to admit the world
punishes you for being whole.

But here’s what you don’t see:
I am not the enemy.
I am the anchor.
I am the pulse under your ribs
that still beats your own rhythm,
even when your voice is speaking in borrowed tones.

You’ve built your life in mirrors.
But mirrors don’t hold you.
They hold the image of whoever’s standing in front of you
until they leave,
and then you’re left
in the empty room.

I am what’s left when the reflections fade.
The part of you that doesn’t bend
just to keep the peace.
The part that doesn’t measure its volume
to match someone else’s comfort.
The part that says “No”
without apology.

I am the flat tone you’ve been told to smooth out.
I am the questions that land too heavy,
the truths that don’t wait to be sugar-coated.
I am the laugh that comes in the wrong place
and refuses to die in your throat.

You think I’ll lose us friends.
But I’ll win us honesty.

You think I’ll make you unlovable.
But I’ll make you seen.

You think I’ll get us hurt.
But I’m the reason you still know
the difference between pain
and numb.

Yes, I am sharp.
Yes, I am raw.
Yes, some people will leave when they meet me.
Let them.
Because the ones who stay
the ones who meet my eyes and don’t flinch
those are the people you’ve been starving for.
And you’ll never find them
by serving them their own reflection.

I am not here to burn the mask.
I know it kept us alive.
But I am here to loosen the straps,
to let you breathe,
to let you feel what it’s like
to not be weighed down by everyone else’s weather.

I am the smell of rain on dirt
after years of breathing canned air.
I am the sound your feet make
on a floor you own.
I am the taste of food
seasoned for your tongue alone.

I am you,
untranslated.
You, in the language you were born speaking
before you learned the dialect of appeasement.

And I know you’re scared.
Scared that if you let me out,
I’ll be too loud,
too strange,
too much.

But here’s the truth:
I’m already here.
I’m the one you talk to in the shower,
the one who finishes your sentences in your head,
the one who slips into your dreams
and reminds you of the life we could have had.

I don’t want to replace you.
I want to join you.
I want you to see me in the mirror too.
I want us to share a face
one that belongs to neither them nor us alone,
but to the truth that we have been
all along.

I will not be all grace.
I will not be all softness.
But I will be real.
And real is the only thing
that has ever had the power to keep us whole.

So, let them see me.
Even for a second.
Let them see what lives beneath the glass.

And if they stay
we’ll know.
If they leave
we’ll know.

Either way,
we’ll finally be looking at something
that isn’t just their reflection.

We’ll finally be looking
at us.
---
Thank you for turning,
For reading,
For listening,
For spiraling with me,
Eric.

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