We laugh at him,
My friends and I,
In our bubble of teenage invincibility
We laugh at him,
Skinny and ungainly,
In shirts one-half size too big and
Kakis  that were probably $10 at Meijer's.
We laugh at him,
Hair carefully gelled and combed to cover the
Bald spot where too many nights of
Indecision and loss have rubbed it clean.
We laugh, his awkwardness fueling our
Shameful antics,
Shrinking him until he appears no more
Than an irritating fly with
Strangely sad eyes and  
32 years of small-town memories not
Validated,
Never appreciated.
We laugh at his first-time fumbling and confusion,
Not knowing how to handle us,
In our smug overconfidence and
Judgement like one thousand pins,
How to reach beyond our stubbornness
To teach us something worthwhile,
Something beyond the plan.
He sits like an origami bird that was made
Without instructions,
Perched on the corners of old desks,
In storage rooms of old textbooks,
Wrinkled and refolded.
Yet his sad eyes and open vault of memories makes him
Stronger, stranger, than I, we, have ever seen in the
Four walls of our learning.
Favorite books and winged metaphors
Fly
Next to seeds of joy and a father's death,
Twenty-two pieces of musical
Coping
That we laugh at,
That we see as a pitiful attempt at rejoining life,
That we scorn
With our teenage invincibility.
It's alright.
We know the value of less than nothing-
Our judgment means nothing.
His too-big shirts
And lyrical memory will
Exist
To anchor a life
Far after we have left,
Lost,
Wandering.