The world in the magazine has got it all wrong.
It's nothing like what they said on the weather.
We all line up to throw our hats in the air,
so that a girl can take a picture.
The one downstairs who saw my hat
and imagined a flurry of fedoras.
That wasn't in the forecast.
The running joke we have
that everything is a carousel
is just that, a joke. It's not even that funny,
but it's better than the silence inside,
that whirls from the reality,
That we're all hanging from the same cliff,
that deadens and dulls and explodes and sings
and yearns for an image mysterious enough to be familiar.
When hanging from a cliff. It makes no sense to punch
the people that share your rope.
The reflection of my own cowardice is clear, dear.
Things like, "You're better than that." "You're smarter than that."
"I have faith in you." Are pointless exercises in the oldest,
most pompous, most spectacularly unsuccessful game in the world.
The boy who hasn't grown up.
