Words Can

The words were as haggard as the speaker,
drunken and pathetic.
How long were they hidden on your tongue,
just waiting for a malicious reveal?

True words bring out true colors.
But I see you in black and white.
A transparent mask on your face
with a mouth full of lies,
each with a splinter that sticks to my skin.
I expected more of you, I did, from my own kin.

And shouldn’t we all expect more?
But to share that is to be unfair.
So expectation dissolves into enabling.
And enabling leads us here.

To the words that sting,
each one deeper, indeed.
But each word says more about you
than they do about me.