I couldn’t tell you when I started doing it
Or why.
As far as I know it’s always been a part of me
My parents were certain it was a phase.
That this, like my nonexistent terrible twos,
would come and go
and the people in supermarkets would stop staring.
I know now how odd it looks.
I don’t blame them.
Imagine a miniature me, burning a hole in the floor
pacing back and forth
Hands clenched around an action figure
Mumbling nonsense to no one in particular.
Perhaps, they’d assume, to the toy in my hands
that my eyes were strictly fixed to.
“Talking to myself”
They called it.
Like I was crazy.
“Quit talking to yourself!”
My step mother would slap the toy out of my hand.
“You’re a big boy now, stop it!”
Maybe I would have if she took time to talk to me without screaming
or if my father were home enough to see how much she hated me.
How she Isolated me from her children,
the very ones who grew up to hate her more then I ever would.
But to me, it wasn’t something strange or crazy at all.
It was – is – kind of like watching T.V.
only more interactive.
I would tell myself a story.
The action figure, or whatever, was like an actor – a template.
For anyone I wanted to create.
The world around me would melt into static,
and I’d play both audience and performer
Putting on shows full of fantasy and magic.
Adventure and romance.
Tragedy and madness.
My own private little theater of distractions.
The older I got,
the smaller my actor,
and more private my performances became
until my action figure became a pair of toenail clippers.
Small enough to be hidden in my pocket
If I had to descend into the real world without any given notice.
The way I acted,
when someone walked in on me
You’d assume I was doing something naughty
and maybe I was.
Maybe it was wrong to indulge in the imaginary,
to live for fiction
but I didn’t care.
It was the one world I didn’t have to share.
I eventually would,
But I liked that I didn’t have to.

When I started writing these crazy stories down on paper
English teachers took notice,
and saw in me,
an apprentice.
Someone who could live their long forgotten dreams of being…
I don’t know.
I don’t think they did either.
They taught me the mechanics,
Putting names to the concepts I had known and used for years
that’s how I came to writing and to poetry.
How I became what I always was,and never will be again:
A little kid, telling  a story,
with indifference to the audience,
or lack thereof.
For no other reason,then to escape everything
If only in the moments when no one is watching.
Every now and again,
I still like to slip away from the crowd,
pull out my toenail clippers from my right front pocket
and see what’s playing.
I know, I may look and sound crazy
talking to myself over here,
and maybe I am.
But at least it’s not a boring conversation