So you want to be a ghost in the minds of people you don’t know

Hi, hello
I am Anna Nicole 2.0.
I’ve been making out with a mirror
since the moment I was born.
Or so I’m told.

Not a second later,
the unwinding began
slow nautilus crawl
course the size of the ocean floor
holding my breath like it was my job
carrying your family’s weight like it was my baby.

They said no one feels with that magnitude.
“If only you’d quit talking about yourself.
We all know how to help ourselves,
righter than any rubric.
The needle always eventually points north.”

The loneliness comes in waves that you are not.
To be the ocean is one thing,
you say you don’t know who Anna Nicole Smith is and I say “Yes, you do.”

I can spot the snags and eager plot twists a mile away
still I’m entitled to that wreckage
that says I risked being alive.

Is there a such thing as divine loneliness?
Is it just household grief?
Can I call it something else?
and wiggle my way out
instead of all this goddam dramatic writhing?

My performance gene has grown cold.
I just want nourishing relationships devoid of emotional gymnastics.
I guess that’s like saying, “it’s just the ocean.”