Bitter Words With Myself Poem by Damian Patterson

I sit across myself in the diner
The smugness that radiates from my face
Sickens me.
Do I feel the same about me?
I wonder to myself.
We both
Dip our lit cigarettes in the ashtray
Like they were pieces of food that we
Had rejected.

“Who do you think you are? ” I
Ask myself. “I’m you.” I answer.
“Well how did it happen? ”
“Simple, he died? ”
The burst of empathy that would bleed out
had
apparently died as well in
this fellow that is me.
“He had a daughter who is
your sister, a wife
who is your mother.
How could you not care? ”
“I never said I didn’t care
but what could I have done? ”