Inspired by this poem from Bridgette Kay.
Hopped a freight, saw gang in Thompson
Falls, flatcar next track over. They liked
my car better, took it by force. No, wait...
Hopped freight into someone else's car,
who pushed me out again without my
knapsack, broke my leg, or...
I remember: clinging to moving car, one
hand desperately grabbing a handle,
slipped, lost my legs while those
startled drivers waited, watched,
horrified behind barricades. Or
did the speed freak sipping Mickey's
Big Mouths not drop me off, but
instead mug me miles from home?
Eloquently, asked blond Orphan Annie
out when snow bounced like Styrofoam.
Followed her eastward to Midwest. Sat
bouncing one child after another while
she conducted services at her church.
Or did we split angrily over my lack
of faith? I can never remember.
My epileptic buddy seized while training
for his bicycle road race, hit his head,
died. Knowing he didn't take his meds,
dedicated my life to medical counseling,
patient support/advocacy. Died early,
stress from lack of success, debt.
Indulged whim to own motorcycle.
Pretending to slalom along Woods Creek,
hit gravel, slid into oncoming lane,
already occupied by one-ton pickup.
Or did I just slide right over the edge,
mangling my body, my hopes for
being energetic weekly news reporter?
Did my heart burst when I snorted
Black Beauties? Or did I die after
doing same with PCP disguised
as so-called cannabinol? How 'bout
that time "chocolate mesc" turned
out to be rat poison, not placebo?
Millions of me's live in my memories,
branched from events gone right,
events gone wrong, events gone
different. When my editor ended
my career for once again failing
to put "ly" on adverbs. When my
employer marketed my database,
fame, money, a new career following.
When I got hired in Southern
California instead of upstate
New York. When my wife died
from cancer instead of lived.
70/100
100 poems in 100 days
Every one of those branching events could have happened, the only speculative one being the one about getting fired for not using “ly” on adverbs—although an editor/publisher could have ended my teaching career before it started when upon learning I intended to teach journalism he laughed and said, “You?”
- I did indeed hop a freight while in college. There was a sinister looking bunch of guys on a flatbed. There could have been a guy in my car. I did hang on gamely when I tried to mount a moving freight car now way too high due to a raised railbed. After getting off of the freight, a tweaked out guy picked me up in a Roadrunner around midnight.
- I did have a crush on that young woman in college, but too insecure, I didn’t ask her out. I speculated on her future career.
- My epileptic buddy fortunately had his seizure on the dormitory floor, not while he was out training for the race. He’d stopped taking his meds.
- I did slide right into the oncoming lane of traffic. It was a lonely road. I righted the bike, got back into my own lane.
- Uh….yeah I did do those substances as described. The capsules at the end only had chocolate in them, not mescaline.
- The rest is self-explanatory.
It’s interesting to me how I think about all of the ways my life could’ve gone wrong, only rarely think how it could’ve gone differently, and not at all how something could have gone right instead of how it went down. Does that make me a glass-half-full kind of guy? Or do some of us innately focus on good things instead of bad ones?
all the voices in my head 