Could You POEM

Part of The 2nd Burden Anthology.

Could you love the mucus me? 
Onion breath from Subway me. 

Too much coffee, giddy me. Dizzy me. 
Dad jokes; only in my 20s me. 

Could you love my apathy? 
Lack of ambition, lazy me? 
Commitment-phobic, forgetful me? 
Absent minded, eyes-always-out-the-window

me? 

Could you love the me

you choose not to see? 
Depressed, withdrawn, no energy? 
Ying-to-my-yang, much of me

suffers adverse chemistry. 

Could you love the empty me? 
The erector of walls, lonely me? 

Choosing to be lonely me? 
Could you love my enemy? 

What's that? 
Gone so quick-a-ly? 
Ah, I guessed. 

Okie-dokie-me. 

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This poem rightly addresses our humanity in all it's ugly glory. In his introduction to "Pansies" D.H. Lawrence talks about how Jonathan Swift in his poem "The Lady's dressing Room" ends each maddening refrain with "Celia, Celia, Celia s***s!" Lawrence said, while on the surface it might seem funny, such thoughts drove the great mind of Swift to complete madness! He writes, He was simply too squeamish to empathize with her in her bodily functions and, great wit that he was, couldn't consider how much worse it would be if poor Celia couldn't s**t! And one feels like traveling back through the years to comfort poor Celia and tell her to take no notice of that mental lunatic. " That's what this poem is about, accepting and having empathy for the human condition in all its humanity, whether it's f*****g or puking or staggering drunk. Mankind has turned himself into a thing of horror by his own piety. All the natural bodily functions and actions then become scapegoats of shame and revulsion. It is the self pitted against the self and a most dangerous type of insanity. I'm inclined to agree with Lawrence in that people shouldn't be so squeamish about other people being human when it applies to each and all of our species. Great work.