New Poem

Hello friends, if you’re out there. I suppose hello if you’re not, too. It’s been a while since I’ve taken advantage of this platform but just finished this poem and wanted to share it here. I hope you enjoy it.

Thirteen Lashings

Forgiving myself for getting
into a scrape
over a battery operated Bigfoot
truck with a kid named Jesse
not my first transgression
but the first one I can
but my hands to.

Forgiving myself for throwing
tantrums nearly nightly,
my dad, the apple of my ire.
Blame instead
Ronald Reagan
cigarettes in shopping malls
and undiagnosed disorders.

Forgiving myself for swearing
on the playground
for attention
for affection
and disappointing my mom
when she got the call
from the school.

Forgiving myself for swearing
or pledging
or making an oath
to a country
whose history
and secret
and not so secret
dealings
I had yet to understand.

Forgiving myself for cheating
on a worksheet
we’d reviewed in class
during lunch,
my need to be good enough
far too frail
for one wrong response.

Forgiving myself for stealing
an incredible magnet
to which I was drawn
like iron
when Mr. Bechetti was away
and disppointing my mom
when she got the call
from the school

Forgiving myself for imagining
the people in my life who may put eyes
on these words
and deciding to write
this next part
anyway:

Forgiving myself for being
in the church
instead of in
diligent pursuit
of pussy.

Forgiving myself for believing
all the things
they told me
about myself
and others
and pleasure
and punishment.

Forgiving myself for believing
all the things
they told me
about myself
long after I stopped believing
all the things
they told me
about everything else.

Forgiving myself for being
in the majority
on nearly every measure
and believing
all the things
they told me
about others
based on the fluke of my birth.

Forgiving myself for now considering
quitting
getting up from the computer
as I pause
to contemplate
the blemishes yet unnamed.
We’ve reached a part of the timeline
where I might have been
expected to know better,
to not cause pain.

Forgiving myself for considering
omitting
what I’d just as soon
privately absolve
if such a thing is possible
and if so in what
cosmology?

Forgiving myself for creating
this exercise in self-love
and flagellation,
in performative contrition
and painful confession.