Representation

You run across a story
Of yourself by accident.
You feel bad for having killed

The story. It broke in half
Right where you crossed it. Where you
Fractured, the story fractured.

The story had two authors.
Neither one knew about you.
The first author was telling

A story about failure,
About the second author
Who failed to tell the story.

So the first author retold
The tale of the second one,
In which the second one told,

Or at least started to tell,
A story all about you.
You didn’t recognize it

At first, but then the authors,
The second one through the first,
Reached the part where you fractured,

And then you knew it was you.
That’s where the second one stopped
And couldn’t go on further,

Which was all part of the first
One’s story of the second
One’s failure. Not about you.