-- Figures

Let me pant a half breath’s worth of explanation.

Look,

I almost died.

Well I almost decided to almost die, look--

I was called for an audience with

the Dean of Students.

It was not even a semester in.

I wore black slacks

and an ironed, green, button-up shirt.

I wore heals.

I walked slowly.

I walked step step in

step step step out

step step in

step step step out--

Look,

let me just say

the second time

there were between 12 and 18 lacerations to the face

my

face

and both times

it was near finals. Look,

I tried, okay?

I worked hard.

I earned my admittance.

Let me explain,

there was a man

with wispy black hair

face down in a mound of foam that ran from his open mouth.

I had every ambition.
I stayed late, I woke early.

I cared, I tried,
I sought help
 
not once,
not three times.

I came back every week.
I came back every week.

I read, I educated myself,
I reached out, I attempted to educate others.

Look,

I believed in myself.
I did. I once did.

Hadn’t I earned this?

I believed in a meager but livable dream for myself.
Until, there was this man, see, he was

sitting outside the cafe with a discharge packet and these birds
and he kept turning his orange bottles in his hands--

I recognized the hatred and defeat on his face--

I nearly cried as he pitched full pints of water at the birds
and went back inside to refill the glass.

When my confidence evaporated under repeated lashings from the sun,

I looked to you,

and you let me down,
not because you wanted to,

because you were face down in a mound of foam that ran from your open mouth.

G.enerationalized A.pathy D.isorder

Having learned nothing I now sit alongside my status as a well-educated, highly-valued resource for many of the few giant-huge corporations that now control every facet of the living that produced my highly desirable status.

I clutch a plain mug of the coffee I have come to love over many nights holed up in darkish cafes further and further down the road from the expensive community I was made aware I was fortunate to have financed my way into.

When it comes to feeding myself I can zap a bowl of easy mac but I don't know how to plant tomatoes and when it comes to my own happiness I could write an analysis of ways I am likely to feel in a variety of situations and compare myself to other subjects real or hypothetical but I could not make a poem about what I am feeling now.

oh my god

oh my god there’s something wrong with all of it.

why is the knowledge that if I get up on time, arrive on time, complete the exercises on time, and properly fill in the proper forms then I will have my success oppressive?

oh my god there’s something wrong with me.

why is it that the more I try, the harder I try, the more I despite and despite and despite ad-ver-si-ties keep trying, the worse I am at the thing?

oh my god god bless your nonexistence.

were your grandiose godly body to cast shadows in stencils on this earth I’d have to spend my days afraid of stepping wrongly on them.

oh my god there’s something wrong with all of it.

today I have eaten good bread and done good work and kissed a good man and if life is something else I don’t aspire to it.