Author Notes

Author Notes   

I never wanted to be some other beast. 
I’m already the animal that I wish to to be. 
I don’t get into that kind of question game.   

I already crossed my borderlands 
where neither boyhood nor manhood clown my fleshy, bony frame. 
I accommodated its foolish wonderment, 
all my ideas of living forever 
In my play box for nonsense and broken things
where their long-ments have no need of my in-sights   

I still write with the purple crayon. 
I am unashamed of the way it jiggles in my left hand.   

I still know where the skeleton keys are — 
a list I share with no one— 
reluctantly even with my self. 
My ugliest, beautiful forms 
in the midst of so many other lovely, terrible things.   

What’s left is the comfy middle — 
muddled with.all the middles: 
beautiful, terrible, unfinished.#

With my purple crayon I draw myself—
a puff of smoke.
Imperfect.  Shaky.
Something that,
I will never throw away.