In Answer to Your Complaint
Sitting at the great cafe,
across from you,
I listen as you complain.
We have done this many times.
You finish,
and sit, waiting for my advice.
For me, this moment is seductive.
This call to be your answer man.
I am like a trout in the stream,
trying to avoid your hook.
The one where you ask for advice,
and immediately do the opposite.
Your complaint is the self talk
of a dictator, saying
submit, submit, submit,
this is how it is. Tough shit.
What can I say against this voice?
Anyway,
I am not in the dictator business.
So instead of advice, let me
offer you a story.
There was a time in my life
when I was the victim
of my own words.
I called myself angry.
I called myself stuck.
I blamed it on dad.
I blamed it on mom.
No, it was the whole political situation.
All gone wrong.
And taking me
to hell with it.
Then one day, I stopped owning these words.
And they stopped owning me.
All around me, I knew,
were bloody liars.
Every last one of
THEM. THEM. THEM.
I took a stand against THEM.
They got the finger, while I headed for the door.
The girl, the job, all ambition
in the rear-view mirror,
as I drove
to the shady part of town.
The THEM had stolen my childhood.
I was getting it back.
Grown up had given up,
but not me, not any more.
I stopped voting.
Why elect a driver when the car is broke?
I stopped the white lying, to keep the violent peace.
Hi mom, how are you?
Me? Oh, I had a great night last night.
I tripped on acid for the first time. Wow!
I was honest,
to the point of being mean.
Who cares, I reasoned.
I am beyond such thoughts.
But my freedom
required their imprisonment.
I could be cool
only if they were assholes.
In the end, my coolness went out of business,
and I became the asshole.
My protests ran out of THEMS.
I protested the only one left.
Me.
No more dad to blame,
no more mom.
All the THEMs had gone away.
Leaving me to myself.
Doom was around the corner.
Which corner, I didn't know.
I thought faster and faster to escape.
The protesting mind wouldn't have it.
Every thought came packaged
with its opposite.
Stuck.
My moral high ground,
pulled out from under me.
I lost my voice.
The acid sitting in a bowl
was doing its homework.
I stopped sleeping, and eating.
I walked the streets at all hours.
I dragged my skeleton frame
along sidewalks, searching for
half-used
cigarettes to smoke.
I lit a smoke and breathed in.
It turned out, what I lit was me.
I shrank, I shrank,
down to a speck.
The speck
was gone.
I had smoked
myself to zero.
All of it burned away,
into the ashtray.
Now, if all of me
was gone,
how is it that I am here,
sitting in front of you?
Why do you seek advice
from a no one?
Here is why.
When all was gone,
I was amazed to find a new me,
making a new plan, but with total ease.
Saying this,
I sipped some water.
You replied,
but mom?
I took another sip.
Then put my glass down.
