One evening with a few friends in a borrowed minivan, we got a flat tire. Changing the tire was so complicated (like PhD. complicated), we finally had the owner of the van drive over to finish the job while three other men stood and watched. This poem came out of that night.
I think you become
a grownup
the moment,
the very second,
you realize at
some very, very
early age,
you have
limitations.
Perhaps not quite
a total grownup,
mature like,
but some
irreversible threshold crossed on
a life long voyage,
a descent of no return,
a Checkpoint Charlie crossed.
You will never be all you
want to be.
Some will disagree.
the day of maturation,
they'll claim,
comes on that day,
when clouds
of different shapes
call out your name,
raining saturation
of responsibilities,
(feed your family, son).
you
initial your acceptance
by quenching thirst by
drinking 'free' raindrops.
ain't arguing,
the when exactly,
for this highway-journey has
so many rest stops.
But
when your body
cracks with disappointment,
harvests the bitter knowing
that
can't,
means there will be no defying this truth, now self-evident:
there are somethings
you ain't gonna ever be,
or never be able to do.
here's the rub awful.
the street called
Recognition Rue
is the longest road to
a dead end
you are forced to travel,
and the cruelest part
of this joke is
you rue the day
and the next day
and the very next day,
when, each time,
the Dead End sign
moves along all by itself,
another block or two,
with you following,
behind by a
block or two.
after awhile,
you cease to curse,
satisfied with the certainty of discontent
you and your
bag of tools,
cannot have every,
will always be lacking,
the precise instrument
to do
every job right.
half good is likely
your total best,
so sadly shuffle along
at the bequest of
the little voice insisting, whining,
have to, gotta go...
You
want to jack me up
on a cross of
protestations,
words like learning,
and
promises to teach,
no limitations,
words that overreach
and hint of
lesson recitation.
I can't change a tire
but don't give a ****.
this is not how
I measure my self worth.
the sadness that prevails,
that contaminates my brow,
ain't mastery of survival skills
likely I'll never need again
don't need your
complementation/approbation
of what I can,
or rants
why I can't.
For nothing will ere exceed
the exasperation,
chest ripping
agony of frustration,
that one single poem
worthy of saving
has ever,
nor will yet,
never, will
leave my fingertips.
It is
forever detained
in the prison of my limitations.
now that's worth
acknowledging,
now that's worth asking
now that's worth
answering -
why, why, then,
grown up you,
keeps on trying,
surely sure,
that looking back
regretfully,
is useless,
(and you have heard
the lock click thunderous clap of:
"sorry son,
your presence is...
not needed,
no worries, we won't
ask you to do
when better
surrounds us everywhere").
Answer is:
that it is worth trying,
writing,
a poem about why,
I can't change a tire
and it don't matter,
just so I can say
to myself,
*I'll never be all the way grown up.