by Bill

“I know you’re in there
You’re just out of sight.”
~ Al Stewart

I can’t begin to number the times my wife has said to me over the years things on the order of “I just want to talk to the real you!”  It used to piss me off, because I was convinced that the “real” me was the legend I’d created in my mind and was attempting to project to the world.  Hell, it was frightening to think (because it was true) that there might be someone inside that I didn’t even know — someone who might blow my cover, who might leak the word that I wasn’t the tough guy I’d painted myself to be.  What if the world back then had known that I secretly wrote poetry; that my greatest ambition was to live in the woods, take pictures and write?  Would they have cared one way or the other?  Probably not.  But having been convinced that the real me wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t about to let them find out. Continue reading →