Our eyes meet on the summer street.
My gaze repels you,
A sharp, unblinking glare 
Of wordless anguish.

I frighten you.
You avert your eyes from mine
And your children's eyes, too
The way people do
From public unpleasantness.
You don't know you scare me
More than I scare you.

I fear everything.  I am never safe. 
The eyes of the universe see into me. 
And steal everything who is me from me.

You sit over coffees
Plotting, scheming
Whispering how I am unclean,
How I am wearing too many clothes,
How I am not like you.

I want to be like you.
I want to sit at the table 
And share coffee and talk,
Not of the dark thing
My life has become,
But of the lost, happy times,
Still within me, like the ghosts of dreams.

I want to see my parents' eyes
Without their tears.

                             - Stephen Jaffe