Judgment Day

Day 23

After Marge Piercy’s “The Birthday of the World”

I don't know when I appointed myself judge of your crimes
but I'd like to retire.

It's hard to have standards
but maybe harder when nobody can match them.

I'm too young to be this bitter;
I'm too young to have forgotten how to play

with words, with blocks, with bubbles
that float only to land on an unwelcome outstretched branch.

I think I'm finally letting myself
see who I am in the mirror

because what I judge you for,
I judge myself.

And as I approach myself,
I approach something ugly but something true.