“I thought you were conceited.”

more lines from “A Poem Under the Influence” by David Trinidad

… The things I’ve missed / in life, lost in my own head. I don’t know how many times I’ve learned (after the fact) / that people have felt I slighted them, when in actuality I simply wasn’t present, fully, / but absorbed in my own (usually grim) imaginings. “I thought you were conceited.” / “No, just cripplingly shy.” Once, when a certain individual (a publisher of gay and / lesbian poetry) treated me rudely, I asked a mutual friend why he disliked me. / Friend later reported: “He says you snubbed him at an AA meeting five years ago.”

source: The Late Show by David Trinidad. Turtle Point Press, New York. 2007.