Less

You called it cereal box philosophy. 

Mass produced tidbits and factoids

that ultimately amounted to nothing more

than the latest fad in new age wisdom. 

You said that everyone who spoke that way

was buying into the same prefabricated speech

written for idiots

too sightless to know any better. 

When I ruminated on my life

and the myriad of ways it wasn’t turning out according to plan

you accused me of being naive

and buying into the same cookie cutter promises

of the American Dream that you said

I was too intelligent to believe in. 

You laughed at my epiphanies,

as if they were so obvious

that even the blind would see them. 

You accused me of wanting to stay stuck

in the cyclical repetition of my own mistakes. 

Told me I was more than capable

of choosing not to do the things

that chained me to the impossibilities of my life

and then rolled your eyes at me

when I marveled at your audacity.

The more I sought to understand,

the more helpless you accused me of becoming. 

Saying I was victimizing myself

by whittling my problems down

to the last common denominator. 

Defining me with the same psychobabble

you’d said I was so naive for believing.

And as I listened to your words,

as I believed your ‘truths’,

I became

less.