picking at scabs

Picking at scabs

If I stumble across fame 

with a fortune that hasn’t came 

from my back or my brain,

then I’ll look 

for the nearest lost and found 

to return it,

and when they ask 

where I’d like the reward sent 

I’ll give them a fake address

because it wouldn’t have meant 

anything to me.

At a car dealership 

I saw a glimpse

of what my life could be,

a couple that didn’t enjoy 

their own company,

but were simultaneously 

afraid to leave,

“I spend two hours in traffic,”

the man said looking from the salesman to me.

“I don’t care what it is,

it just needs to be comfy.”

If the opposite of life is death,

then the hypothesis of creativity

would suppose that it’s about 

a broken heart trying to fill its own need,

the skin when you tear it bleeds, 

dig in the ground and eventually 

you’ll find a river underneath,

like online dating

and the thought that

you’ll find someone capable

of emotional stability.

“Yeah, but were all busy.”  

“I know,” I say

as I picture what it’d be like

for you to be across from me.

“How’s your quarantine?”

The three dots in the left hand corner 

tell me that she’s typing,

but I can’t wait

for another disappointing first date

and instead take an attempt

to dissect our shared narrative formally.

“It’s like the food line below my apartment this morning, 

a man with a clipboard and a blue mask 

checks in other men that look like him,

‘One?’ ‘One?’ ‘One?’

Styrofoam plates just before eight

on a black man’s mourning, 

all-day IPA is half the toxicity of malt liquor

and what privilege affords me

is meant to be for some 

only a quick release from the system 

in which they are damned.”

“A lot of this is tied up in our history.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“But don’t you think 

each one of our families have a story 

and until we learn to write our own role

we’ll only be a background character 

in a movie that no one will remember?”

“Ok smartypants,” she says. 

“Which scripts have you thrown out.”

A piece of notebook paper 

labored over with pencil,

written on and erased, 

I tear it out, 

crumple it up, 

and throw it away;

writing is an attempt 

to define the skin that we’re in,

a collective experience 

that’s like being two beers in 

and finally having the balls

to ask the girl you’ve had eyes for 

to sing karaoke before she walks out the door. 

A poet’s got to know the possibilities

and still hold onto to belief,

it’s his responsibility to get a win, 

kiss some lips, and take some hits;

and when a conflict gives him a wound 

he’s got to watch the timelapse begin

and just as it’s ready to heal

he’s got to pick the scab 

because the pain has to be fresh

as scar tissue can’t feel.