Someone Else's Life Poem by R. L. Allen

I feel like I'm living somebody else's life.
It doesn't feel like mine.

I walk around,
following feet that are
smaller and more
careful than my own,

my eyes stinging
seeing double
blurred images of
the faces of friends
now foreign and distant

do I know that person?
I ask myself as they
wave at me
do they know me?
do they know what's happened?

I sit and listen to the
voice of the teacher
and I'm thinking,
why am I in this class?
I can't speak French

I can't understand this language

why am I here?
why am I not at the church,
praying?

why am I here?





03.01.2011
This is only a first draft, but I'm posting it here until I've edited it.