Thinking About Writing a Poem

 

…you were out on your own, driving around in a blue Chevy Nova without a radio, smoking too many cigarettes. Thinking about that girl with the braces and the motorcycle. Not washing your clothes enough, and smoothing out the wrinkles in your face, coming to the conclusion that nobody loves you as much as your blanket, Binky. You never even thought twice about getting good grades; instead, you skipped classes and left campus with Keith, and the two of you, the two of you drove to Satan’s Kingdom with 4 bottles of Boone’s Farm wine and a hunk of gouda cheese, and the two of you drank that gateway wine and ate that pallid yellow cheese and got so drunk you thought you finally belonged, but you didn’t exactly know what you belonged to or didn’t or maybe didn’t give a s**t, that was probably closer to the truth, although the truth when you’re 16 or 17 is so allusive and slippery, you just don’t know what to do next or who to screw next of why you even decided to write this s**t down and have somebody else read it and judge it and critique it and tell you how flat and simple and predictable your prose is, how you write about the same themes over and over again, the theme about how love has to wait, you keep writing about that, why do you keep doing that? You’re so contradictory, do you even care anymore? Would you rather I not bring up those sensitive subjects in front of your family, who sit around the table and wonder what the other is thinking, go to bed and dream about telling each other off, or tell them to leave them alone or they’ll run away and become nothing, a ne’er-do-well, a hermit without a conscience, a man without life or love or blood or guts, just this flimsy puppet job-hopping, bed-hopping, bar-hopping, watching the kids in the middle of the sidewalk hopscotching while you drink your scotch with a guy who’s a Scott Irish and without all his teeth. Isn’t that where the real fun is? Where does the reality of your fantasies collide? Don’t even try to discuss it. Don’t even try to figure anything out because nobody’s going to want to dig that deep.  They’re just not investigative, thorough, or anal. All they wanna do is try not to be so preachy around the reverend. They sing sad songs and blame the whole world for making them appear suicidal in front of crowds of people without hats or memories, just don’t have what it takes, keep writing cliches and writing badly, and knowing not where to turn, who to screw, what to do, wonder it all, desire nothing, just keep the s**t on the stove and make sure it don’t boil over. That was the only advice my grandmama gave me tit o’ tot toddler. Why do you keep this up at all? Don’t you have any pride? Anything you wanna say to us, anything at all? You just keep thinking the wrong thoughts, the bad thoughts, the thoughts that make up the human heart and break it into a million pieces while you have a piece of a*s and don’t even know what the next line is gonna be . But there you go again, writing the s**t, not knowing, not caring, just wandering around the metaphors over and over and over again and dancing your fingers all over the keys. Is it any wonder why you keep misspelling words?