I Told You Once.

I told you once I told you before,
I'm not something I don't know about.
I am nothing I know nothing about,
words creep slowly up the wall like a cat.
I couldn't take the worried crease of your mother's brow,
the insistent drilling of your father's favorite sports into my head,
the french onion soup that never came out right during
our winter holiday up north to your mother's.
She told me she used to work as a car salesman,
that she used to dream of the day when she could get fired,
and actually work where she wanted to work-as a hostess
at a four star gourmet restaurant, a window cleaner,
a volunteer at the fire department.
She wanted all those things, she said, and more, writing them
all down in her notebook, making promises with herself to
try to fulfill her dreams. She didn't know which way she was going.
Or why she wanted to go there. She didn't know what she wanted,
what she could be, and summer came swiftly.

On the War In Vietnam.

From the depths of the night,
I followed you, walking,
Down the path in the park.
A sparrow flies past me,
Chittering softly.

I am walking my miniature poodle,
Who I rescued from an animal shelter
In Jackson, Mississippi,
When I lived there with my uncle,
Who was dying from Alzheimer’s.

Sometimes, I could hear him crying
In his pillow,
Carrying on and on about the deforestation
In Malaysia,
About the dying, the crying,
The horrors he saw in Vietnam.

Instead, I melt slowly inside myself,
Until I am nothing but a shadow of myself,
Wishing for another heartbeat,
Wishing for the cold to enter me.
Wishing for someone other than myself.

I am gone. Just gone.

A Stroke of Genius.

When I was two, the letters "B" and "L"
struck in my mind like a flash of lightning-
some say it was a strike of genius, my professor
says it’s bullshit.

I don’t really understand bullshit. Or why people
use it as an excuse when they don’t understand
how to do the right thing-the right thing is never
written in any books; it is stamped on your knee cap
like a badge of courage, or
wrapped inside your heart. It’s something you can’t see.

Some people say I don’t know anything. I think they
are right. How could a two year old know something
a grown up should know, but doesn’t?
How could
a seventeen year old? How could, how could-

How could the dash in a sentence have so many rules?
All the rules mean shit when you’re by yourself. All bets
are off.

I don’t believe in bullshit. There’s simply too much drama
attached to it.