Diplomacy! Wicked gift!
I want to know if Imagined Me has started being perfect yet-
Your little pet that I should really care less about, for she is not mine.

I do inform, like that’s a boundary.
You interrupt. I carry on. But you do too, and I
give up, and I tell myself
that next time I will not try, that indignities are worse than abuse,
that apathy is my boundary,
that I will not try to start a conversation midst your monologue,

but that when I’ve had enough, I will tell you STOP,
like some career person besides diplomat-
I’ve been so legalistically honest
but never truthful. To what end?

I will not cow down anymore, will not be your rolling wave
bending back and forth-
Truth will smash you

and it will not be my fault.