Here I am
Spending nights at school.
Seeing scenes and sights
That are everyday
But that I don't see every day.
I feel like I need to return the favor
For feeling good.

Oh wait...

I am in debt already.
Even though there aren't signs
Everywhere
Telling me that my grace period is fleeting,
I know the consequence of feeling good
And doing something for me.

Where there's good felt,
There's a bad waiting to co-mingle,
Such is the yin-yang
That shapes a circulating balance of events.

I sit to stare at a nice small brick waterfall outside
The education building,
But I'm still walking debt.

I jog around campus
Air crisp, the sun only seen by final red luminaries,
The feel of the seasonal conversion
From summer to fall...
But I'm jogging debt at this point.

I enjoy my meal plan food,
Good-tasting food I'll admit
In my own opinion,
Getting my fill of a surrounding
Variety of eats...
But each step is a step toward the realization
And back-hunching weight of debt.

I enjoy sitting at a swivel desk
At all my classes
And meeting and talking with new people...
But all at the expense of debt's presence.

I have my own room and
Free ride on the public transit...
But knowing that someday there will be a price
For all this.

The pleasure of seeing campus' sexiest women
Will also crumble
At debt's feet...

Debt to friends,
Debt to pay back the school
In currency and by achieving
The education I am pursuing
And hope to keep with.

Listening to music
While running the track,
Shooting hoops,
In my dorm,
Lifting weights,
All to the tune
Of D-E-B-T.

Again, it's all worth it though.
As of today, this is what I've been craving,
What my spirit sought as freedom.

Loans, debt,
Reimbursement,
Costs, expenses,
Purchases,
I escape these words in fun and fascination,
But I will feel the fleeting effects.
Fun makes time fly
And debt is never late.

But suppose there was no debt at all:
No debt to self or anywhere or
To anyone besides.
If exchange was only a fantasy,
Then there would be no incentive
For the societal life,
And freedom may as well
Be isolation.

Debt gives me something to work for
So that life isn't just handed to me.
There are things I should avoid,
But if I can't,
That doesn't mean life ends,
Rather here would be an indication
That my life story isn't supposed to
Achieve the norm.

Maybe the debt can be forgiven,
But only at the debtor's expense.

Some new can be the same
And some same can be new.
New can be same
If there are the same results,
The same viae
To arrive at the same loci.
Things are different though
All the same.

Might as well be the law of demographics
In that people who are favored in some places
Are not going to be cared for in others as much.
The news is definitely a place...
After all: North East West South,
More than one place to correct a leading message.
It's easy to get haughty
And to just as easily plunge to distress,
But the body needs to feel both
To remember it's mortality.

Not just another side of me
Or everything I've done
And hear everything I said
Far from ear's reach.
But I'm the one that thinks,
As soon as I pass the security check
At every place in Washington D.C.
That I forgot to pull something out of my pocket
As a security precaution and protocol.
I pass scanners, but I think I'm that villain
That tricks the bomb-sniffers,
Without lifting a finger,
Into thinking that there's no harmful instrument on me...
When I hypnotize my memory
Thinking I passed GO
When I should have stayed at the STOP....

Other cases outside reality: TV shows and movies.
Oh my god!
What I would do sometimes to cut the middle of most plots
Just to twist heads,
Open eyes,
Slap faces,
Just to uncover who's on justice side
And who abused justice as a disguise.

I've stayed in hotels and other traveling accommodations before,
Whether for a day or two,
A week or two,
Even staying at relatives
Like Granny and Pappy,
Places I'd never want to leave.

But now I am somewhere that's my place,
My room, my community:
Fairmont State.
Can't wait to start over
And try school again
In a different town
With a brand new attitude.

Some tasks may still be
The same level of difficulty,
Like making friends,
Timing and sharing,
Getting to class and hitting the books,
But I think what'll keep me from dropping out this time
Is the hometown support of friends, family and other neighbors,
Like a major athlete going for the gold
To return to the people that nurtured such a yearning.
Some say life's not FAIR
When most pay a FARE,
But if I can FAREwell,
I can FAIRmont.

I
Taking advantage of the milestone age,
Prowling the night by myself,
I pull into an unfamiliar stone ring of parked cars,
Locked the car, and walk-clinked against ground-level stones
Until I pulled the handle of the main door
To my first bar/club entry.
Hesitation and nervousness showed up
When I presented my license identification to the bar staff...
But if they let me in at all,
Suppose I don't give off an adolescent vibe anymore.
Seeing my work boss rock out with his band bros,
Freak Show, turned me from nervousness and silence
Staring at a random TV channel
To responding to Jamie's audience calls,
To dancing like my mom, Robert Barone, and anyone I could think of,
To dancing with other people I never met,
One woman swooning over my self-initiative to dance at all,
And resulted in clogged eardrums
Rock and rolled
Give it time,
This side of me is awakening.

II
After circling Berkeley Springs
And realizing I passed up Hillbilly Heaven bar
[I mistook it for a car dealership],
l crossed the street into a new-to-me adult audience realm.
Outdoor setting, speakers and techno-colored lights,
A mechanical bull available for riding,
*******,
Rock music,
Women grinding each other playfully to the music,
Busts that only my eyes could see to believe,
All under a starry curtain of a sky.

III
Closer to home,
The parking a trick
That took one circular trip to land a legal spot.
Another unroofed setting,
Downed three Sprite sodas,
Pretending to make a pavilion stake
a stripper pole,
dancing slow up-and-down,
Dancing the same stand-still body-rocking moves each song
Only to support the music being brought by Freak Show.
I sat next to a Dr. Pepper co-worker
Who laughed dangerously the entire night I saw him.
I shook my ***** with a stranger woman
Like two Newton ***** clinking each other rhythmically.
Thanks to supporting staff and benefactors!

IV
Taboo Gentlemen's Club,
The security check-in churned my feelings
Into thinking, I was lying,
Lying to myself and to security.
But I wasn't negotiably.
I passed the metal scan
And paid my way in.
Strippers, poles, birthdays
With spanking.
Luxury chairs,
Flying money.
Maybe there's no club I can join,
But there's always room to join the club.