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by Cole Atkinson

sometimes i mutter just loud enough to be heard
over long since divorced parents, screaming half-brothers,
and the pale white faces of first-time mothers.
i hold doors for "queens" who carry synthetic purses
and men who love their god when it suits them.
papers with more confidence than i could possess
tell me things i never wanted to hear,
while bookish young judges peer at me over horn-rimmed spectacles,
and i know they're whispering to stars that i'll never see,
telling them i fucked up, i fucked up everything,
and maybe sometimes they're right; maybe i shred dollar bills
and burn books that had weeping words inside
otherwise uninspired covers, but when i fuck everything up,
and i mean everything, at least i do it with a smile on my face.
at least i can look in the mirror at my scars and not be afraid,
but instead wink at my own failed image and grin around them.
i shouldn't be here, maybe, because my mom and dad
used to be teenagers too, as parents like to say,
and maybe they were a bit too in love and fucked the wrong way
and before anyone can blink i'm sticking my blood-covered head
out of my teenage mother's womanhood and no one knows
whether to cheer or boo, because when i'm born,
poof, there go my parents' futures, there go universities
and successful careers and investments and retirement plans
and whatever the fuck else adults like to do instead of kids.
both confetti and suicide notes fall from the night sky
above my hastily organized parade, and the marching band
never had time to rehearse, so there's no music--
instead there's the humming of the moon and the choir of
reluctant grandparents singing the blues a capella.

sometimes i mutter just loud enough to be heard.
just so i can hear, i tell myself, "fuck you."
and i cry because i know that i deserve it.

05/08/2011

Author's Note: A look into my life so far.

Posted on 05/09/2011
Copyright © 2024 Cole Atkinson

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 06/15/11 at 09:04 PM

Hmmmm, but there is you, now.

Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 11/06/14 at 01:32 PM

everyone screws up. as far as humans are concerned its par for the course, but not everyone can write poetry. that is a blessing and a gift and if there is anything to take comfort in, it is that you can at least write spell it all out in poetic form.

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