confessions of a teenage blockhead

I am me.

((but--


sometimes when i look in the mirror
i don't see my face; instead
i see muscles, red and bare and bleeding,
with impossible equations written all over them,
and sometimes when i try to solve them
and i get the answers wrong,
it hurts and i scream.

and sometimes i walk in hallways
that are too narrow, too sharp,
too familiar for me and everyone else
standing around; and sometimes
i hear them talking, whispering,
about them and me and you
and personal demons, most of which
i'd rather not hear about.

and sometimes i look up at the skies
and i see planes - sopwith camels and fokkers
going at each other in eternal dogfight
in a world where the war's not over;
and watching them fall makes me
want to jump into one
and fly away.

and sometimes i want to play the piano,
but i'm not a virtuoso; and instead
i sit by someone else and listen
as my fingers twitch and ache
for smooth ivory, while the notes
make rain that rains against
my heart and i cry.

and sometimes i hear a woman sing,
and when she sings, i imagine
she sings about me; or maybe
she's not singing about me, but about
singing, and how everybody else's girl,
or boy,
should just be her - his - their own.

and sometimes i lock myself away;
and when i do i nurse my wounds,
call myself by my initials, and
stare at an old russian doll,
at all the details on her dress
and all her girls and boys inside,
just to remind myself that
i am
nothing.


but--))

I am me.