An Accident

after the game

tug of war

push and pull

like a fat man

in a small door

they squeeze

and call and cry

with effusive faces

and merry hearts

leaving the field

and littered stadium

popcorn and potato chips

trodden on concrete

to inch home in traffic

cause it's great to be

a blank.

Sometimes I feel like an archaeologist as I sift through various pages of my scribblings and sketches; I feel as if my younger self, even if only a few weeks younger, was more a distant ancestor than my same self. Sometimes I shake my head with amused shame at my naivete or my fleshly attitudes. Other times I wonder at the wisdom I had in that moment -- the wisdom I seem to have discarded over a lapse of time.

I unearthed this poem a few pages back in my poetry journal from September. Written to complete a school assignment, I faintly remember slapping the words onto paper and then laughing out loud at its ending. The "blank" at the end was intended to pose for an unspecified sports team, but upon re-reading I realized how philosophical and morbid it sounded! :) I can see students poring over, attempting to unearth my hidden meaning, probably something along the lines of the anonymity of modern society. And all I was doing was writing a poem with similes in it.

It would fit very well in the pages of my English Composition II anthology. (And that is not a compliment...)