Ever have to visit relatives on the holidays? Here is a short poem describing what I go through every year- maybe others can relate to the experience:


Before the Event

Alone within a nutshell
I do not feel in the place
Of all the
Others here or there, or
Anywhere:
They talk about a movie of which I could have been
The star.
Their laughter is loud, and
Males me cringe. As a
Wounded animal;
I want to run away
And hide.
My, they tell me
How I have grown-
In more ways than one-
But never in a good way,
In their eyes, that forever
Seem to stare.
They speak of their lives
All so different than mine, although
I could never define
What all has been said,
For my mind wanders away
To some foreign place.
I only rise
When loud laughter once more
Arouses me.
These people are my family,
But all at one time,
They are strangers, and
Their world spins around me
Too fast for me to follow,
I see them as many planets who
Revolve around me- the sun.
They say that the sun shall
Some day burn out and disappear,
And so it is finally happening-
I rise to my feet, leave the table and
Walk away,
A sun that has reached its peak and
Has finally burnt out.

Claudia Krizay (schizoclaud)