Sometimes when I pick up the pen
I feel my 5 ft 7 and ¼ inch frame
perk up like David at the sound
of Goliath's slurs.
I swear i'm 6'6"
and ready to dunk the basketball
straight over Wilt Chambelain's head
made soft by the kisses and “**** yous”
of the 20,000 he probably never called back.
Sometimes when I start to write I believe
that I am invincible like James Cameron's
submersible in Titanic's
C deck sifting through soot and broken china,
floating over smoke stacks and rusted bedposts,
or reaching out my robotic arm to open
up the door to the radio room that once
buzzed with hellogoodbyes.
Sometimes I feel like the soldiers walking
behind that little napalmed angel screaming
down that dirt road in Vietnam,
oblivious to the fire of my words.
Her cries shrink me back down to size.
But most times I feel like I'm hooked
up to a lie detector test in the dank basement of
an FBI facility, blood pressure rising while
the polygraph line traces
the outline of a mountain range
no one has ever hiked.