Name games

Thanks, sweetheart. Thanks, angel. Thanks, love. Thanks, sugar. Thanks, pet. Thanks, darling. Thanks, treasure. Thanks, precious.

Words of endearment stream from people’s mouths so easily now,

I begin to wonder if they’ve lost their meaning.

Complete strangers calling me more names than my family,

my friends, even my spouse.

 

I never hear them call the boys ‘love’ or ‘darling’.

I wonder why that is.

I hear ‘mate’, if any at all.

Thanks, mate. Good job, mate. Nice to see you, mate. Well done, mate.

 

Sometimes, everyone seems to be a star.

But why?

We’re just doing what’s been asked of us, what we’ve been trained to do.

I suppose that’s it.

You’re just responding in a way you think you’re being asked, in the way you’ve been trained.

Where a boy cannot be a treasure, and a girl cannot be a mate.

You might not think that anymore,

but the words remain from when you did.

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The looking glasses

Books are mirrors, some say

and I know that some of my

friends, when they look in them,

always see their reflection

staring back, as they’ve seen

since they were kids. Then

there are some, like me

who only see their reflection

when it’s blown up to such a size

that every pore, every pimple

and every uncertain smile

is visible, the words

behind the mirror irrelevant.

I even know people who

have never seen their reflections

on the mirror pages.

They keep thinking their reflections

don’t matter, maybe they’re broken.

But I know better. It’s

the mirrors that are broken,

and one day soon, they will

all be replaced with new ones,

so everyone can see themselves

in those precious tomes.