The Introduction

You don’t need
ten days of silence.

You need one honest introduction.

Next time the voice starts up,
the one that catastrophizes,
compares,
sells you escapes
you don’t even want,
do the strangest thing in this book.

Don’t argue with it.

Don’t obey it.

Greet it.

Hi.

I now see you.

Say it the way you’d say it
to a scared animal.

Because that’s what it is.

Yours has been waiting
a long time
to be seen.