Fiction of Presence

You told this terrible lie
A rupture of your usual honesty
Because you truly believed I was delusional
Of course I wasn’t a Survivor
You surmised

My hands trembled with the fear of fate
When I spilled my heart before you
You questioned my intentions
Refused to be embraced by reality
You chose not to believe
How I suffered to exist all these years
Turned my memories into blasphemy
Somewhere behind your suspicions
You might have been profoundly worried
So much so that you chose doubt over truth
Too convinced to check the facts yourself

Tears left no scars to prove my tale
Yet I am here proof enough
I am not a fiction of presence

(Teri Buford O’Shea was a frequent contributor to the jonestown report. Her other poem in this edition is Survivors’ Rights. Her collection of poetry on the site is here.)