once i knew.

Once I knew where I was going.
Now I am in my twenties, fresh from hard labor,
drowning in my sorrows at the loss of the X-Files,
and my grandmother with the big ears who used
to speak Russian and no longer remembers.
Once I knew where I was going.
Once I stood for something.

Now I write poems that are too short for magazines,
too long for anyone to understand them.
Now, I break my back walking to the store,
where I bring home a carton of eggs that rots within
weeks,

and the man of my life, the man who was supposed to be
my wall,
left me in a pile on the middle of the kitchen floor,
laughing at me like the Joker from Batman.

Once I knew where I was going because of Gandhi, King,
Malcolm X, Maya Angelou-once I wrote their names on blackboards
in my tiny, childish scrawl,
in first and second grade.

Once I knew, now I know nothing.