POEMS!

Welcome to the inside of my head.

BET ON IT.

I bet you love Madonna.

I bet the future makes you scared.

I bet you miss your mom
and your dad
and the you from yesterday 
and the day before.

I bet the love of your life came and went.
And came and went.
And came and went.
And left your noncommittal ass
for something they could hang on to.

I bet you’ve never seen a sunset
like the sunset I saw one night on a boat
in the middle of the ocean.
Or like the one I’ll see the next time I see one.

I bet something haunts you.

I bet the road meets the rubber
far more often
than the rubber meets the road.

I bet somewhere out there
in some parallel universe,
you and I are friends.
And we just finished lunch at the Silver Bullet Diner.
And we talked about the days we were having.
And I bet it was bliss.

THE SIGH OF A MAN

My father sighed greatly.
Not for any reason.
Not that I knew of.

Sometimes it came from his head.
Sometimes it came from his gut.

Now he’s gone,
and I sigh greatly, too.
Not for any reason.
Not that I know of.

Sometimes it comes from my head.
Sometimes it comes from my gut.

And it makes me wonder
if this is just the sigh of a man
once the weight gets so heavy.

CRYIN’ IN THE MIDDLE

People cried tears of joy
on the day your brand-spankin’-new ass came into this world.

And they probably kept on like that for a while.
Grandparents and loved ones and friends traveled great distances
to meet a fleshy blob that couldn’t speak
or do much of anything yet.
How beautiful.

And at some point, you became old news to most.

“Uncle John, wanna hear me sing a song?”

“No, I’m not your dad.
I’d rather eat one of those pickled eggs
they keep on the bar
at the dive around the corner.” 

Eighteen: get yourself an education.
Twenty-one: get educated in debt.
Twenty-seven: get yourself a partner and some fleshy blobs for everyone to cry over.

And they cry—for an appropriate amount of time, of course.
Just about until the singing starts.

But you’ll well up at every damn occasion—
momentous or microscopic.
And those damn blobs you made 
will almost definitely be ungrateful.
You know because you were ungrateful yourself. 
At least I was.

Then, one day,
your role in the story ends. 
And, if you remember, back at the start, 
this was your story.
About how you came into this world and people cried.

And now you’ve left this world, and people are crying again.
Because somehow we all forgot to appreciate the most beautiful things
we should have been crying about
that happened in the middle.

ROMAN CANDLE PEOPLE

My family makes 
Roman candles.
Shoot out 
into the night sky
and light it up.

Pop, pop, pop—
now reaching for the edges
of the exosphere. 
Blazing flashes of yellow, blue, red, and green
could set fire
to the whole damn world.

Burn hot.
Burn bright.
Burn out too fast
for greedy human beings.

And when it’s all over
everyone cries,
“How lucky was I
to be showered in those flames.”