i can’t escape
this dreadful thought
that i am not
a real person
nothing more than
a simple projection
hazel hatches hiding
a simulacrum in a
collection of
ones and zeroes
with no real heft
substanceless in a
semi permeable flux
background noise
sputtering static
featureless amongst
the crowd of rowdy
rabble rousers
a shrinking violet
in a garden of
forget-me-nots
broken traces of
circuitous shorts
a hand-me-down poet
with a secondhand
head of insignificance
the shadow of the
man i should have been
one worthy of being
instead of a suspect
fleeing the scene of
vacant adorations

the greatest trick
the devil pulled was
conviincing me
i actually exist