Side Ways

Tell me about being a hypocrite,
about being somebody you're not,
and then you are,
and then you're someone else all at once,

kind of the way Hawthorne used to talk about things being double-sided,
or two-faced,
or one way with you and another way with everyone else,

why wasn't I allowed to be a chameleon,
did that make me fake,
fake to you,
real to someone else,
and did it mean that I should stay away from mirrors,
and reflecting pools,

there were rules about all of us,
but they seemed like they applied to me,
when it came to you,
and when it came to you,
my opinion was irrelevant,

when we were first doing things,
when we were first able to take steps without looking back,

when we were first,
we were not worried about the last word,

and the idea of right and wrong,
and the idea that you would be over here and I would be over here,
or the concept of judgment,

or that we were different,
at all