The man on the other bank

You who’ve watched me through my own eyes all my life. My brother, my enemy. You, standing on the other bank, witnessing. I imagined you tut-tutting at my kitsch, accusing me by your very presence, back there where I was armed and mad and ready to destroy you if it killed me. I called you a coward and tried to scream you out of your silence. But you followed me. You live on behind the names I give you, like all the women I’ve berated myself for not winning and all the men who got there before me. On calm days I know we’re one but separate; I let you work out our destiny through me as I know I must. On happy days I even see in you my perfect reflection, my self fulfilled through no move of my own. But this isn’t one of those days. I drank all night in a locked room and I’m hostile. Today I belong back there where I came from, I don’t know why I’ve come all this way. I don’t know who you are and I hate you. You make me cryptic, turn me against myself.