if you could look upon me now
you would wonder
“how did this man come
out of the one I once knew”
how could I answer
which decision was it
mine
yours
or ours
that brought me to this place
where
you are gone
like a character in a book
I closed
only to pick up a new one
with new characters
and a plot
neither of us
could have foreseen
while your sequel
was it romance
fantasy
or perhaps horror
while mine
became a play
filled with characters
I could never write
that would drag me
out onto a stage
I never sought
and if
you saw me standing there
would you
for a moment
wonder
if it was
really
me

Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tehachapi, CA. His poetry has appeared in: Reliquiae, Silver Blade, Eccentric Orbits, and many other places. His first chapbook, drifter, is available from Amazon. His poem “there are fossils” (originally published in Silver Blade) came in second in the 2020 Dwarf Stars Speculative Poetry Competition. His plays have appeared on California stages in Pine Mountain Club, Tehachapi, Bakersfield, and Hayward. He has also won cooking ribbons at the Kern County Fair.