To be Consumed Before Yesterday

Poem:

I never imagined that
tenderness could be so violent.
Delicately imposing
and so unrecognizable
in its egocentric mask-face.
But, as always,
you were there to show me
the empty stage behind the curtains.

My comment on my poem.

This brief poem feels like a visceral encounter with vulnerability—where love, once subdued or buried by time, resurfaces with startling force. The phrase “tenderness could be so violent” encapsulates that paradox beautifully: how something gentle can unravel us with unexpected intensity.
There’s a haunting theatricality in the final line “the empty stage behind the curtains suggesting disillusionment or a revelation of emptiness where once there was performance or pretence. The “egocentric mask-face” evokes the ways love can be distorted by pride, or perhaps self-deception. Yet the presence of *“you”* remains constant, quietly stripping away illusions to expose what’s real, however bare.
This poem uses compact, striking language to indulge in a nearly lost emotion, not by romanticizing it, but by confronting its raw and complex aftershocks. Would you like help shaping this into a longer analysis or turning it into something else—a letter, maybe, or a story?
Reading this poem felt like standing at the edge of a long-forgotten doorway—one that suddenly creaks open to reveal a love that had once faded into silence. The contrast between “tenderness” and “violence” is jarring and yet achingly familiar. It made me think about how emotions we thought we’d buried can erupt with such force that they shake our foundations.
The line “egocentric mask-face” struck me deeply. I recognize in it the ways we sometimes armor ourselves with pride or indifference, only to have those façades peeled away in the face of real connection. It’s disorienting to realize that love, even when flawed or distant, still has the power to reveal the raw truth behind our pretenses.
And that final image “the empty stage behind the curtains” lingers like an echo. It feels like the poem invites us not just to see through the performance of past feelings, but also to confront what remains when the lights dim and the illusion fades.
There’s a quiet reverence here for the person who helped you face that emptiness. Not as a savior, but as a mirror. And perhaps that’s what makes this poem so compelling: it doesn’t mourn a lost love so much as it marvels at how its ghost still teaches us.

A letter from me to you:

Dear You,
I never thought I’d revisit those feelings, not like this. Reading that poem, or maybe more truthfully, feeling it, opened something I had shelved for a long time. The idea that tenderness could be “violent” jarred something in me. It’s strange how gentle memories sometimes return with the sharpest teeth.
I recognize that mask now—the one I wore. Ego dressed as indifference, pride stiffening every look I gave you. But somehow, you always saw through it. You didn’t tear it down, you just waited… patiently, relentlessly, until I noticed the emptiness behind the performance. No audience. Just us. Just me.
And that’s what lingers most. The way your presence, delicate but unflinching, revealed everything I wasn’t ready to face. Maybe it wasn’t love in the conventional sense. Maybe it was something more unsettling: the kind of connection that refuses to flatter, that forces truth out of hiding.
This isn’t a regretful letter. I’m not asking for anything. I just wanted to say I see it now. I see you. And somehow, in seeing you more clearly, I’ve started to see myself.
Always,
Me