i stepped on the antecedent's toes, didn't i?

you, my dear, have grown
ever-so-careless with your
pronouns. i've misread you
before on their account,
those faceless parts of
speech to whom we loan
our hand-painted masks.
nameless loves, named
nouns, the proper
people unashamed,
reaching out and verbing
one another across vast
prepositions.

really, i'm as guilty as
anyone. it is so easy
to address our envelopes
to: you and expect the
message to be delivered.
to: him, to: her, to: abstraction;
all equally cause the great literary
mail carrier to shrug and tap
his foot. yet, strangely, our
little notes always arrive,
timely and unopened.

and, to be honest,
i know why we do it.
when you spoke of him
and him and him, i
was able to slip myself
into your life, uninvited
party guest standing
in the corner of your
poems, waving, awkward,
tugging at the strings
of my mask, being him,
if only for a little while.
if only to stand in a room
with you, her, we, us.

identity, how silly. how
easily it comes to us,
the pretending on the
page. and then how
naked we feel after
taking off the borrowed
mask, feeling our i's
like new things,
excited to be our own.
then the looking around
for us.
then the cold, fast
remembering
in only seeing
you and him.