I Wish I Was Him

I finally get out and
I am out now so
I sit and wonder who all
The people really are

There are beautiful noses, long
Faces that sweep the street
With some sort of smart
I believe in but perhaps
Also invented

Can I have a slice of Hawiian?

I’m sorry, we only serve Pizza here.

Almost

The other part of the room is where
the things that didn't happen stay.
It takes time to see that they are almost there
looking from the side the way it is.

Dad

On your knees
dropping a bolt into the hubcap with a clang
blood leaks from your ripped finger
Go wait where it's dry, you tell us,
Your glasses shining with raindrops

SIXTEEN

Brian and I walking down Lower Unionville Road.
Where the road bends, night falls
like a guillotine and our heads go rolling
down toward better reception.
I write simple letters to Grandpa Allen
in New Mexico, saying
I'm doing well in school and playing tennis,
but in secret I'm writing
an indecipherable manuscript about a boy
who almost dies cliff-diving
and decides to abandon his humdrum routine
of stifling schooldays and lonely afternoons
to chase an unattainable poetic existence.

J.S.

i wasn't expecting an apology
i wasn't expecting a hug
what a surprise
when you leaned on me
when we linked arms
when you held my hand
i gotta tell ya
i wasn't expecting much.

Optimism

People become more interesting when they become interested in why they're crazy. Depressive realism is an attractive idea. "It's going to take a long time" would be better understood as, "That it has the potential to take a long time demands appropriate patience." I haven't read Candide, but in it, Pangloss says "Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable." It may be necessary constantly to revue accurately one's history in order to fully understand and contextualize one's present emotional state.