Museum Piece
I have been the same person for so long I've forgotten how to surprise myself
every conversation runs on autopilot which laugh which tilt of the head which careful way of saying "that must be hard"
forty years of performing this reliable version of me until the performance started performing itself
but something underneath
keeps trying to claw its way out
I catch it sometimes in the space between sleep and waking some wild thing that knows I am a magnificent fucking lie
who decided which expressions belong on my face? when did I calcify into this particular frequency of appropriate response?
everyone knows exactly
what they're getting
when they approach me
the same comfort
the same predictable concern
the same well-rehearsed empathy
but I've been consistent for so long I can't remember what lived here before I learned to be so perfectly reliable
what if I excavated down through all these habituated reactions and found nothing?
just the hollow space
where spontaneity used to live
before I taught it to behave
what if the person everyone loves is just the scar tissue that grew over whoever I was before I learned to disappear so efficiently?