Starting out with
nothing, as I did
but a very
nebulous idea of
what was cool
and a high degree
of anxiety
I was dropped
headfirst and
soft side down
into West Texas.


Hordes of blonde
Amazons with bows
in their hair
and their massive
Topsider-wearing gods
driving along
in new cars
of foreign makes.

In this small-town.
This tiny Paris or
New York City
they were important.
Anyplace else they
would have been considered
hicks.

I was like a baby,
a blank page
as it all went by.
I was in awe of
Travis and his
Mohawk
and his bedroom
you reached through
a trapdoor
in his Grandparents'
garage floor
and down a ladder.

I was 18 and in awe
of this 16 year-old
West Texan
who had absorbed
more than I had
or so it seemed.

I was like a blank
page filling quickly
a baby lusting
loving, hypnotized
by babyfat West Texas
girls with
part of their heads
shaved like
fresh lobotomies.

Girls that hung out
with Mohawk Travis
who thought this
nerdy black guy
was cool.

Mods...
The Lubbock Texas
people in black.
A fad of many
started by
homosexuals.

So many
confused sexless-girls
and their skinny
non-****** boy-things
having late-night
get-togethers
fueled by methamphetamine
which was brought
in by outlaw bikers.

Bikers that would stomp
these people
like kittens if
they ever actually
crossed their paths.
But that never happened.

Two different worlds.
Although I wound up
hanging in places
they separately frequented.

Mods...
So snooty and
faux-gay and the perfect
targets that
just begged to
get beaten up
but it never happened.

These Texan young
people in this
fishbowl college
town, trying to
snoot us all with
how cool and
avant-garde they
were.

They
got the dance clubs
packed with
college ******
that were
taking on the
clove cigarette and
black v-neck
sweater mannerisms
of this tiny group
of about a hundred
confused jagoffs
who lived in
back issues of
Interview magazine.

I'd hate to think
that I was without
a girl in the
outside crowd
because I was black, but I
don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe it was
because I was so
desperate and sad.

The dusty flatland
magnifies the
little lizard into
a Gila monster so
I'm Godzilla with
my frohawk and
engineer boots.

My searching for
something, something
I needed to be
a creative need
a statement made
something not so
quiet so boring.

West Texas College
town Redneck-rich
peckerwoods with
their tanned noses
in the air,

smearing
**** on the dorm
bathroom walls or
letting their
***** solidify on
the carpets and
in the sinks
because the
school has *******
and Meskins
to clean it up.

Life is fun
when things are
just handed to you.