We ARE History

Just when you think you're safe,
even safe enough to exchange pleasantries
with strangers in elevators, you hear
that someone has been upset with you
because of something stupid you are
supposed to have said 15 years ago.

And elsewhere, perhaps, someone
you've utterly forgotten (or remember only,
in a crowd, a smiling face that briefly
frowns)--someone daily cherishes
the rosary of your misdeeds
and hones a dagger.

[Note: I wrote this shortly after encountering someone I had no idea disliked me who, it turned out, had indeed been pissed off with me for 15 years. Kind of sad for her. When I asked her what the upset was, she told me--it was something I dimly recalled having said--something that was not malicious, by the way. But I apologized for having upset her. She received that sulllenly. About a year later, when I heard that she'd done some truly psychotic things, it became clear to me that this was her story, not (my) history. So I no longer have to hide in a cave lest I destroy someone with a remark that communicates something I had no idea it might communicate.]

Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM