The Worst Lies

“You have to believe in your stuff—every day has to be the new day on which the new poem may be it.” —John Berryman

The worst lies, they say, are the ones 
we tell ourselves

when no one else is listening.

A man can lose his way on a dark road,

his headlights can grow dim,

his car crossing a white line

that he no longer sees.

A poem he once believed in falls apart.

A heart stops beating.

Then comes sleep, 
followed by an awakening,

and a new kind of feeling forms, 
unfolding,
even before he can name it.