we've had it too good to (****)
we sit in soft bedrooms but
feel like we are freezing in the street
with a hard fistful of hairy knuckles and bad years
we talk like we've been there,
we sing like we've cut our lips open on the wind-
pushing our hands into our pockets down to the elbow to get out of it.
walk tall or sling low by the hold of our railroad boots.
sharpen our pencils with swiss-army-knives,
pick out our splinters with it
but we have too few,
       we've not learned to hold things carelessly enough-
not learned to hurt hard enough.