09-17-2013, 03:55 AM
Whatever happens, happens;
stop obsessing, things happen:
like death happens.
But the little things, you know,
from your obsessive attention
to all bad things that do,
of course, eventually add up:
to fall beneath them in their elements
is not to live at all.
Many would cry themselves to sleep each night,
if they didn't smoke or drink themselves
into an early evening oblivion.
And those dreams:
Everyone you've known,
gathered in your front yard for a cookout;
mingling, of all damned things.
All ignoring you, except when you try
to drag them around back.
To the sides of the house, to the places
shaded from the obnoxious heat of the crowd.
But this is your crowd,
a crowd of you.
Look, there's your old girlfriend
that attracts men like flies.
She stands conspicuous
in a sweet summer sweat.
See how they flock to her;
everyone you've ever known.
Then there's that black guy
standing shyly against our wooden fence,
the only black person in high school,
even among the girls, that could talk to you
without trying to start a fight;
as if you were a bee that just flew in the window.
And I realize I miss him a little bit.
Now that we know who we're talking about,
I could describe the tables and the grill
and the two long hedges,
how they differ from real life, and merge
with other places from my history.
But I won't.
I just keep on . . .
There's no doubt my family wants to destroy me,
I can feel it in the air around them;
silently accusing me of murdering that little boy
in the photograph on the shelf above the tv
in my parents' living room.
It's obvious my friends are out
to betray me.
Why else would they agree to appear
together in one place at the same time,
a little too unaware of whose dream this is
that's actually ending.
Soon the atmosphere will feel more subtle,
and I can take a half-defeated comfort
in the spiderwebs that decorate my October.
Waking in that scratchy harvest warmth:
walls breathing like smoky tears in the back of my throat.
stop obsessing, things happen:
like death happens.
But the little things, you know,
from your obsessive attention
to all bad things that do,
of course, eventually add up:
to fall beneath them in their elements
is not to live at all.
Many would cry themselves to sleep each night,
if they didn't smoke or drink themselves
into an early evening oblivion.
And those dreams:
Everyone you've known,
gathered in your front yard for a cookout;
mingling, of all damned things.
All ignoring you, except when you try
to drag them around back.
To the sides of the house, to the places
shaded from the obnoxious heat of the crowd.
But this is your crowd,
a crowd of you.
Look, there's your old girlfriend
that attracts men like flies.
She stands conspicuous
in a sweet summer sweat.
See how they flock to her;
everyone you've ever known.
Then there's that black guy
standing shyly against our wooden fence,
the only black person in high school,
even among the girls, that could talk to you
without trying to start a fight;
as if you were a bee that just flew in the window.
And I realize I miss him a little bit.
Now that we know who we're talking about,
I could describe the tables and the grill
and the two long hedges,
how they differ from real life, and merge
with other places from my history.
But I won't.
I just keep on . . .
There's no doubt my family wants to destroy me,
I can feel it in the air around them;
silently accusing me of murdering that little boy
in the photograph on the shelf above the tv
in my parents' living room.
It's obvious my friends are out
to betray me.
Why else would they agree to appear
together in one place at the same time,
a little too unaware of whose dream this is
that's actually ending.
Soon the atmosphere will feel more subtle,
and I can take a half-defeated comfort
in the spiderwebs that decorate my October.
Waking in that scratchy harvest warmth:
walls breathing like smoky tears in the back of my throat.
