By James Ph. Kotsybar

I must call everything into question, now
that you’ve smugly done your one-eighty,
mistrust your most innocent suggestion and
find your lightest of motives weighty.

I see, in a new and much harsher light, that
what I took for truth was just an act,
and I must review, with improved hindsight,
what once I blindly accepted as fact.

I don’t blame myself for naiveté.
In fact, I’m proud of my guileless trust.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I don’t expect you to feel guilt. It’s just
my measure of you needn’t be reversed,
if you’d been honest with me from the first.

About the Author

James Ph. Kotsybar, published in six countries, is the first poet (honored by NASA to be) published to another planet. His verse orbits Mars (at NASA’s request and www voting), became part of Hubble Space Telescope’s Mission Log, and was awarded and featured at NASA’s Centaur’s 50th Anniversary Art Challenge. Other honors include State Poetry Society of Michigan (awarded while Joseph Gordon-Levitt serendipitously workshopped this one-page poem into a short screenplay). He's read for Troubadours, (Europe’s oldest literary institution) in their founding city of Toulouse, France, at EuroScience Open Forum, Europe's largest interdisciplinary science event, earning a standing return invitation. He also once sang the poetry of William Blake with Allen Ginsberg at Santa Barbara's Old Vic Theater.