No. 9

Are there people who you always want to be mean to? There are for me. Although there are only two of them, I want to be a total bitch and bop them in the nose every single time I hear them, read about them and, especially, see them. Nearly all of the time, I hold back from saying anything terrible, but I will occasionally let some soft-core insults slip. When this does happen, I think they deserve it, really. They’re just annoying as hell.

I would sit and stare blankly out my

window at night, looking at the nearest high-rise

and its Coke-bottle-green windows that

were illuminated from the inside, and

worry- rather than wonder- why I couldn’t draw

any inspiration from them.

Ingenuity was dried up back then.

It was possible that I gushed with so much

creativity when I was younger, that it

overflowed completely- leaving nothing

to even taste in my later years.

I was studying to be a journalist,

aspiring to do something different like the

Celebrated Gonzo, but I lacked the grit

to even start. I called on god, but

rowed away from the rocks.

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While traveling the summer prior,

my family visited The Big Smoke,

that foggy city cut up by the jade tinted

Thames and the Blitz. We rode the Tube,

which is just a subway to Americans.

You can’t see anything other than cement tunnels,

but it’s the most efficient way to travel.

We waited to catch our trains inside stations

that had glass and iron ceilings, where one

could watch the fog-filled morning raindrops

pitter, patter and roll down.  Things were fresh

and I learned what is art and what is history

and what is art history, but never did I learn how.

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After the trip, I had returned to academia.

In fluorescent-lit classrooms, we were taught

how to make a buck and how to provide. Equipped with new brains,

we knew the cold hard cash was what we needed.

I suppose I blame that as the partial cause of this mess.

I had left my verve in a soggy lump and,

no matter how hard I tried, I could ever to come back to it.