Storage Space: A Collection of Contemporary Verse by Darren A. Stein - HTML preview

In Their Eyes

I’ve seen their eyes—
when you tell them what you want; when you tell them what you do; what you dream.

It’s callous, scornful, snobbish.
People tend to break each other down, try to bend them to their idea of the collective normalcy—
public acceptability—
and slowly people die,

inside,
where it counts,
where their eyes reveal the
disappointment and hate
that looks at other people
and breaks them too.