Choosing

She shivers off a painted lie
as if to say she never cared for all
the pretense and the bullshit that
she let pass between her lips.

As if an entire life of persona
could be shifted in a single moment
and all that came before it would be
just another memory.

I guess that’s the only way that anyone
can live with themselves,
when the pain of living another day
inside a façade becomes too much,
when that little voice inside screams so loud
that no amount of rationalization can ignore it,
to be able to make that choice to just
give up all the anger, the fear, the pride;
it’s when we refuse to make that choice,
when we choose cowardice over courage
or when we forget that we have a choice at all
that we suffer from what seems to be
the greatest of defeats.