The You Who Got Away
I'm the you who got away first,
that dropped out in the late sixties
dropping back in, in the eighties,
the sixth grade Florida, only Jew
who was made to sit in the corner
donning a dunce cap
for arguing, "but it’s Wrong!" when Mr.T
wrote statistics on the blackboard
that he claimed proved
that blacks were inferior to whites.
i'm the you who thought it through:
who said to yourself, "that’s it,"
I'm not doing this....
no matter if they suspend or expell me
or someday kick me out
of home, schools or jobs;
the you for whom it all
then came true .
I'm the you who owes
her success to failure;
the cash-poor, imagination-rich
girl living
in the luxury of time;
the one who's not locked into
clock, cock, or debts;
the tired mystic
you don’t know whether
to love or to hate;
the ageless aging child,
with timeless cracks in the heart
and a free ticket home
from her Hell
I'm the only Caucasian
riding on
the Oakland bus
with Black, Phillipino and Mexican folk,
thinking
what am I
Doing here?
I'm the you who
takes long walks,
who at age sixteen
enjoyed spying on people
in their houses at dinner,
wondering how
do they live you
I'm the you who won't use
a car
because I don't know
what else to do
to protest blood for oil,
[and besides, you find walking renewing]
I'm the you who stopped looking
into peoples' windows
the astounded at colors you
dazzled by this museum of nature
I'm the you who never got socialized right,
nor got enough art as a child,
the one who the TV babysat,
who didn't know she could turn it off
when it terrified her,
the one who still has nightmares
of drowning,
and is sure it must have happened
in another life
I'm the one who can't decide to give up coffee
but doesn't need it
in the open air of Roma Café
on the corner of College and Ashby,
the one who wishes the table was bigger,
who'se trying not to make a mess
the one with the scar tissue on the ovary,
the one who didn’t care if she lived or died,
the one who still doesn’t care;
the one who loves life;
but sees movies in her head of its horrors,
the one who gets itching and burning
in her ear from the radio waves
from the cell phone;
the one who got money for tellin' the truth,
the one who went to work
with her dress on inside out;
the one who went sane
when she stopped working
the one who discovered free love
was expensive,
the one who wants desperately
to be forgiven,
the one who hated men,
the one who hates anti-semites,
but who shut up about her oppression,
after the pottery teacher
(upon hearing her complaints)
said mildly that he has to
put up with horrendous
male-bashing in the studio;
the one who didn’t have to be right;
the one you thought had to be right,
but that’s just because
she believed what she thought;
the one who said not to believe
everything you think
the one who lied that she never lies;
the one who forgave her mother and father;
the one who forgave herself;
the one who forgave her daughter
for outdoing her in every way
except being wild;
the one who finds people
simple to love
but difficult to like,
who ends up friends with her ex's
and fantasizes a harem of men
the one who comes back,
who apologizes,
the one who wants to be understood;
but who doesn't understand
the one who went mad with anger;
the one who blamed the world;
the one who blames her self;
the one who blamed the men;
the one who stoped blaming
when she learned meditation;
the one who stops meditating
when she starts to relax,
the one with the enlightened mother,
the one who people
either love or can't stand,
the one who went away,
but came closer to you;
the one that got away last.
