• Artist’s Statement

This poem reflects the experience of validation of past emotional trauma. The narrator realizes, watching actual video footage, of the truth of his memories.

  • Validation

Guzzling Malbec

like a broken-down, boozed-up child star,

I watch videos of myself as a kid.

A birthday party 50 years ago

has been Super 8 digitized,

and I finally see what I always felt;

through the camera’s eye

that look of hatred she gave me

and the threat in her eyes

before she noticed the camera

and remembered to paste on a smile.