The Ofi Press Magazine

By Mike Maher, Canada (Published in Issue 4)

A Conversation With The Self

Wake up,

your name is a false cognate,

your entire life one ambiguous, drawn-out away message.

You bent down to tie your shoelace

and looked up,

fifteen years later,

only to feel the other one loosening.

The not-so-fine line between

clarity and ambiguity

is the self.

Dogs have no true ambitions

outside of belly rubs and people food,

and, much in the same way,

the self's only ambition

is clarity of the self

with sweet Eden apple-esque exterior ambiguity.

mike Maher. is nothing but an unbalanced pile

of less-than-third rate Ars Poeticas

that are a few bags of Quikrete short of a walkable sidewalk.

And he says so to his dog,

but all she thinks to herself

as she jerks her head upwardly sideways is

I wonder if he's talking about people food.

He spilled fruit loops last night,

and really, fruit loops at his age?

What's so wrong with a conversation with the self

or the self's dog?

"It depends on the setting and the context," Sarah says,

and Gregg says, "It's usually better

to keep such conversations to yourself."

Mike Maher is the founder and editor of Sea Giraffe Magazine. He currently reads, writes, edits, and walks his dog in Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains. His poetry, fiction, and personal essays can be seen in publications such as The Smoking Poet, The Ofi Press Magazine, Calliope, and Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil Cure. While earning his BA in English from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, he served as the Vice President and Forum Editor of The Stroud Courier, winning the Jim Barniak Award for journalism twice during his time there. He is also the recipient of the Martha E. Martin Award for poetry.