The Stuff You Shouldn’t.

This is the stuff you are not allowed to write about
if you are a normal person, a good person,
the kind who gets along with his neighbors
and the church down the street.

Sex.
And passion, unless it is the holy kind.
Anger that seethes.
Bourbon.
And your fascination with boxing,
the battering of body against body.
Ballet. Blues. Gregorian Chants. All strange to someone
somewhere.
Depression, at least not in black, unacceptable detail.
The broken parts that almost heal, but never, quite.

Just because you are relentlessly OK,
relentless in your pursuit of what is good and noble and hopeful
despite all your weakness and struggle
 Just because you prefer peace, hate conflict,
and have more than a bit of the hermit in you
does not exempt you from the real
no one likes to talk about without judgement
or condemnation.

But it leaks out.
Oh yes it does.
A byproduct of trying to be honest
while not scaring people away.
That is who you are, a Hollywood monster
with a fluffy tail.

About this poem.

Don’t you want to scream sometimes “I’m not THAT good/bad?” Because someone will always try to paint us with their colors, not ours.

Tom