It’s a View

I must confess.

I’ve been using you, sometimes.

I let you walk about the world

Flashing back so much in my rear view mirror.

I look and find you just so irritating. 

You talk too loud.

You wear odd clothes.

You misuse your money.

You drive like a monster.

How can you stand to eat that food?

You never organize or clean the way you should.

How can you have things so wrong?

And then, in that rear view mirror

I catch a glimpse of something else. 

Those eyes.

Whose eyes are those I see?

I am afraid I have to confess.

I am seeing my own eyes in that mirror

That shows me so much of you. 

You have just been a mirror reflecting back on me.

It was not your voice but my ears.

Not your clothes but my distaste.

Not your money but my control.

Not how you move through the world

But my judgment. 

Not what you eat but what I am willing to nourish.

Not how clean you are but my own sense of worth.

Not at all that you get things wrong

But how twisted my sense of right.

Before I look at you, again,

I’m going to start by looking

Into those eyes of mine

And see what I can do to 

Change my view.

~Bob Patrick