when i was
thirteen
i remember whenever i went over
to a friend's house
who had a sort of get-together
with a whole ton of other kids
about once a month
i'd sit on the rug in their basement
with twenty other teenagers
looking at
socks.

there are ten kids
in my family
and two ****** parents
and we had a whole bathtub full of socks
and if you could find two that actually fit
you were golden
never mind matching
or nice and white...
and sitting
looking at all the other kids' socks
i felt like ****
they had the nicest
whitest
socks you ever saw
and mine were grey
worn
dilapidated
specimens
that i'd dug out from the very
bottom.
and somehow i decided
that this was a failure
on my mother's part
that she didn't keep our floors
clean enough
or she didn't wash my socks
right
and so i spent my thirteenth year
feeling like ****
over
socks

and today
i was folding some socks
(do you fold socks? i dunno how it works. whatever)
and i was looking at them
colorful
silly
but
grungy still
and the white ones
still grey
and i thought
well
i don't have a mother anymore
and my socks still aren't
white and
nice
i guess that's one less ****** thing
in my life
i don't have to blame her for
anymore
another nice thing
is that i don't give a ****
about socks