poem of the day 07.21.16

almost combray

i was the consummate indoor kid

i could kill hours watching tv on the couch

contemplating the endless reaches of my unknown self

asking the eternal, why me? why me?

as i drew bad comics or flipped through baseball cards

with no regards to ever play the game

an existentialist latch key success story

left to his own thoughts and devices from age eleven on

drowning in cans of discount soda

and generic boxed macaroni and cheese

1950s and 60s sitcoms like a banquet too

an obese masturbation machine with the old man’s playboys

and any long, tan set of talk show host’s legs

when the neighborhood kids came calling

with their wiffle bats and nerf footballs

with their basketballs or huffy bikes

i tore my fat ass upstairs and hid in the dark of my room

as if the gestapo were coming for me and my hold on time

there i waited in the rich blue curtain shade

of mid-afternoon dark, for them to go away

or out into the street to play those games

to talk that talk that straddled the line of innocence and lust

cultivating those tranquil memories

a whole carnival of useless moments

that wouldn’t matter to any of them within an hour

wherein i had that solace of time alone

as i crept around my house, daring myself to make a sound

to prove that i was real inside this fortress of solitude

almost combray if you will

but with glossy pictures of alyssa milano

and lisa bonet on my walls to contemplate like madeleines

instead of laying prostrate in a cork-lined room

sniffing at hawthorns and staring at steeples

or whatever it was that proust always looked at

when the memories and melting of time

swelled like bursting rivers in his head

or when he just wanted the good people of the world

to leave him the hell alone

if only for a little while.