don’t punish me for loving this—wooed
like someone that’s worth more than me,
but it leads, doesn’t it, to a family feud,
and the pitch we determined, let it be
it’s the spacing that’s important—are you
thinking of his story, the questions he minds?
Selling philosophy to the noble few,
peddling more like it, hands that he binds,
this is a big apartment; He, now, is afoot;
i live my life incommunicado - child
that grows up—leaves you to what’s put
down to recent, historical, and wild
skin and bones, liquid angel, the catcall
continues—she’ll be pulling out her hair
announce it Lehi, say it to the wall
antipsychotic, yes, but don’t despair
light at the end of the tunnel, i belong
with my family—not a drug-addled den,
been doing yoga for years, going strong
swimming, what? to a room full of men—
hardly hungover, don’t need it any more,
wasn’t doing nothing, but hello, there,
i’ll take something, now, to even the score
tai chi makes me think I’m everywhere
not so good, i guess, for my condition,
thinking, as I do, what’s impossible—
get strict with schizophrenia, stun
the wayward crowd? leave me to pull
an all-nighter, something i never do.
You have no idea what I’ve seen—here
and there and the lives that I accrue
making special use of my careless stare,
what, i ask, do outsiders mean to me?
the color of your skin, talk of the town,
think i’m something great, name it gee,
and he’ll turn left, aiming for the crown
i write with my partner—a second
father too me; somehow they’re combined
although this life, once, left him shunned
you can’t always be here: living in my mind