It Has Taken Me A Long Time But I Am Ready
His hands are the color of leather
This is wrong I know it is because it feels like theft
He reaches through the empty space of the window
I hand him the three dollars that I have decided I don't need today
I am cheap - smug - airing of family secrets
I have come to my own words for absolution
and perhaps this is the worst part of it
I want to tell him that I am sorry but I tell him to be safe which is the same thing as sorry
My own fears of poverty - I am poor - will probably die poor
but I have a roof and sometimes food
and since I don't have hands that look
like they are coated in coal I am obviously better
I do not tell him more
and I sit and wait to turn the car into traffic in a silence that builds behind my ears like cicadas storming in their trees
Better than - all my life I have felt the pressure
of somehow climbing a ladder that wasn't even before me
a ladder that no one told me I could even climb
They are screaming
I wanted to sound better and look better
I put on that drag and do my business every day
The cicadas want me to know this as I drive my car into traffic
they need me to hear these words as I listen to my music
and think about my day before me
It is a weight
cheap - smug - and trying not to be noticed as such
I am like this man with the dirty hands sitting on a corner by a McDonald's
I am this man sitting with a cardboard sign that says HUNGRY / PLEASE HELP
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