Expendable

your favorite piece

to critique

every flaw

and mistake

romanticized

globalized

in your domain,

as the phantom

that shadows

your stage

plowing performance

just existing

just mediating

a message

of my salvaged

tastes

to think

I’d lay waste

to your brilliance

your grace

however fated

was never my place

to commentate

or delegate

your affinities

but obscurities

worsen

the more I try

to make amends

I never asked

for dividends

just been happening

and I have my own

worth to prove

yet you prove

left and right

my struggles

never in your hindsight

my confusion

never in your mind’s eye

and my pain

parched

of spotlight

yet,

we love

during the daylight

and you shift

in the moonlight

to demote me

and show me

it’s you

that bites harder

that the pack is bartered

by who can do what

but who will do what

in the case

of a dilemma

if no one

is any one’s

else’s problem

but I guess

that’s not your

problem

I’m

fortunately,

the problem

– B. Brown

 

(image: peeling wall paint in Magna, Utah, courtesy of Pinterest)