Shock And Awe A Sentinel Poem Poem by Gabrielle Ciarann Roniyah Baer

A guide?
When did I ever need a guide?
A helper?
Why should a grown man need a helper?
A partner?
I've never been much for partners.
A friend?
When did I ask for a friend?

Most people I've known as little as I know him
had no use for me beyond the boundaries of my job.
Most people who've tried to 'get close' to me,
I've done a fine job of running off, more than once.
Most people who claimed to know me,
I easily proved a thousand percent wrong.

But there he sits,
watching me like a bug on a plate,
chattering away while taking notes.
But here he stays,
seeing things that no sense of mine pick up,
reading my weirdest moments like a book.

None of my well honed tricks work on him,
Disregard, he disregards,
Sarcasm, means nothing, he shrugs it off,
Impatience, he smiles at,
Anger, he mocks right back where it came from.

I don't think I can get used to this
wide-eyed, eager, almost innocent regard,
I don't think I'm gonna to like this
constant, unending, unbridled curiosity,
I don't think this 'partnership' if that's what this is,
can last an hour, much less a day!


(written sometime in 2003)