Speaking of revolutions,
ours was like a train:
slow to start, but nearly impossible
to stop.
And according to the local legends,
those wheels churn on to this very day.

But what the story-tellers,
the bards of Pennsylvania, neglect to mention
is that the first half of the story
took place only in two separate,
but equally hungry imaginations.

She taught herself to love
the same way I taught myself
to whistle:
like a train.

Modern and Contemporary Poetry
takes up most of the passenger seat.
Pages' edges ruffled like the balled-up polo I'm wearing. Tommy Hilfiger'd
be rolling in his millions. Twenty minutes till work's screen door crashes on the frame twice before settling. Three salad plates, a skillet, and two jars of unsweetened tea condensate
on the metal counter. They soak dinner bills and paper towel coasters.
The front door vacuum seals behind sandal families reeking of Chlorine
and hairspray. Beachy look. Three more families crowd in behind them, taking turns sifting through the hostess desk peppermints for discarded toothpicks. Reservations for 7:00 come in at 6:50 and demand a table. They're  just like the mints packed tightly
in the lobby, but there are a few patient ones at the bottom.  They're the ones that inspire stanzas in **Modern and Contemporary Poetry, the college textbook waiting on my passenger seat. *Three more hours.

I woke up this morning with ambition
in excess. "Today," I said,
"I am going to write the greatest poem of all time."
And so I did.
I just sat down and did it.

This isn't it, by the way.
It was awesome, though.
Like, really awesome.
And now that it's done, I feel a lot better.

"There isn't anything good about
anything, and all of my friends are either
****** or Christian, and I'm stuck
somewhere in the middle."

-Teenagers

She asked me if I was lonely,
if the only reason I said mean things
was that I'd heard mean things at one time
or another, and in order to cope with my
misunderstanding of human nature
and cruelty, I just repeated those sins like
carbon paper,
like a parrot.

She asked me if it was intentional,
if I let people trust me with their secrets
because I knew that I'd only have to prove them
wrong once, and they'd forever
leave me alone.

She asked me if I was embarrassed
of the person that nobody without the necessary
experience would ever see me hiding beneath
the unkind words and the distrust,
if there was any part of me that just wanted to go home
and go to sleep,
and wake up the next day beside somebody who would
already know the answer to all of these questions.


I said no.
And that she watches too many talk shows.

A nearly-elderly couple
(I mean the awkward post-middle-age
stage where the physical energy can't
quite keep up with the emotional energy.)
pays me minimum wage
to burn myself in as many ways as possible.

And I'm pretty okay with that.

I heard a gunshot
from my bedroom window last night,
followed by the screeching departure
of four tires supporting
a metal case of high school dropouts.

And I'm pretty okay with that, too.