I watched my friends, dear and deserving,
live the best days of their youthful lives
not as expected exactly, but
still glorious and grand.
and
From the sidelines,
I watched my friends live
wondering all the while
why the ****
do I not deserve
to do the same.
*It's just such a shame.

Scrape the sides
Of the bowl
Addicted to something
I don't know the name of.
Batter collects at the bottom.
Harvest with a spoon
A moon to guide the way
Hit the road today
Hoping it will only get better
I tried to tell you in person
But I ended up telling you in a letter.

I don't fight with forthgiant
little you, deft little you.

Tell me we'll never get old

because age is just another word for weary
and you're never going to get tired of this
pocket-to-palm life we've built
out of everyday knick knacks and
the daily delivery of baby's breath
from your lips to mine.

Tell me I'll never be alone

because empty air on our bed isn't wasted.
It's just waiting, spaces unfolding
like pressed lungs in the dark--
like the way I've memorized your nape
the side glanced so often
that I know it more than your face.

Tell me things will never change

because change means progression
and we've got perfection tucked away
inside the spaces between us
where the lights are so bright
that cataracts can't keep you from me.

the doctors are silly
they're naive, and believe everything you tell them -
have you noticed?

I said I was sick
and had a fever
and he asked me to stick my tongue out
(see, he'd already believed me)
and he put some wood, and then some glass on my tongue
and he said, "say:'AAAAH'"
(we obviously got a doctor here
who's confused - hey, are you a doctor
or are you a Year 1 English Teacher teaching vowels?)

and then  he looked at these strange instruments
most sagaciously (just to keep up the pretence;
just to impress me, you know)
and declared most solemnly:
"You are sick.
You have a fever."
(Hey - hello! That's what I told you!
tell me something new!)

but the amazing thing is
this doctor convinced me I was actually sick
such was the power of his words
(see, you know those miracle workers?
they get you well with their words
but doctors - they get you sick with their rhetoric -
oh man, doctors really make me sick!)

And I felt sick too...I had come in just to humour my doctor
but now he'd convinced me I was really sick;
he takes my lie and then convinces me of my own lie
- boy, those doctors, you must admit
they might make you sick
but they really got the medicine man's trick!

Still, my doctor’s a sucker,
cos, let’s not forget, it’s I who told him I was sick -
he's naive, and believes everything I tell him

Eating ' Grass', achtung! was a serious business,
if you think I was a vegan gone mad, I wasn't
In one go I devoured his "Tin drum", oh! Oskar!
felt enchanted, loved Grass, looked for more,
finished "Cat and mouse" next, sought further,
then"Crab walk"ed through "Dog years", delighted!
with the wish list in front, I continued to
go for Grass, an eating spree unabated.
Now the hullabaloo over my love for Grass subdued.
who wouldn't see what
Guntar Grass in German,  was doing
to my voracious literary hunger.

You cried to me on the porch steps, like a small boy.
The round moon bearing down, and the cigarette smoke shifting
I held my arms out, but I realized a second too late,
That I am not capable of saving you anymore.

Your mother probably would have looked at me like I was crazy,
if she were still here to see the person that you have become,
But I sometimes like to hope that she would have embraced me,
With her warm eyes and her warm voice,
Because you were always her favorite,
And now you are mine,
and at least that is something that we could have shared.