Ben points out the driver and I stumble in the crosswalk
As tires plog past, just missing my toes. I suppose
It wasn't as bad as it could have been, Ben says and I believe him.
But I give the driver the finger anyway, alien that I am,
Hope he sees it, hurt and humbled.
Hope his heart halts for just a moment
(Merciful of me,
Isn't it?)
I know Daniel squirms whenever I swear, slipping shit! And howling hell!
Because those syllables resound like pop rocks on my tongue. I have begun
To care more for being eccentric, electric! Emancipated
Than I do for being charitable.
Elementary are the things I learned about being kind,
But if a bridge in our brains bids us obey authority, over the bay
My respect has swayed and sunk into the harbor. I harbor
All sorts of evils and grudges and angers yet some still
Have the audacity to tell me, compel me,
I
Am
Good.
(Good?)
(How good could I be?)
I am the teen kamikaze posse of one
Beating up the boy who calls me names
(I won't repeat)
A therapist questions his line of work. My hubris hurls him
Into an existential spiral for the rest of the session
(I should have him pay me instead: $80 an hour)
(To make your ego shrink, Shrink)
Nearly sent my mother to her grave for grief, groaning
Over the hell I raised. She raised a demon. I raise
A glass to all the unfortunate
Whose lives are worse for the wear
Of knowing me.
I have tried to fool myself into believing in my own heroism
Stuff in a drawer my inner desperado
But always, despite how I tell the tale
(I am the villain in the story)
(Chasing glory)
After all.