I Leave it All to You

Biography is a lie told innocently
A compiling, but a life is not a compilation
Nor is a man
the summing up of all his facts
My true life is lived behind walls
Some of it in the dustiest of corners
Only small portions revealed
as though someone had peeked
through the dishevelment of mortar
broken away and crumbling
Not in darkness, but light dim enough
that even I see myself unclearly

Autobiography is a softer fiction
spilled out in the winding paths
we would have chosen for a leisurely stroll
mostly in someone else's shoes
A life seen from the inside, as we hear our voice
in a different tone than the listener
surprised at the sound recorded
Writing my life, I'd skim across the happenings
Filling instead with what was meant
Chucked full of the kindnesses
buried in every thoughtless moment
Tirelessly forgiving all my sins

So the one is too much outsider's interpretation
All strictness, too little bleeding
as the subject must have bled
The other an endless bandaging
The frantic covering of wounds still open
Avoiding the infection of truth
whatever truth may be
The clarity of life, meticulously researched
or lived with all its subtleties
is too confounding a thing for writers
And lie or fiction, I leave it all to you
Protesting that it was not me, but my shadow