When I was a little boy,
I wanted everyone to respect me,
to give me my space.
I was five years old, and I wanted my own corporation.

I wanted my parents never to interrupt me, or to not listen –
they thought I didn’t know they weren’t listening;
they thought that if they were in the same room,
and not speaking, that I thought they were listening.
But I knew they were just waiting for me to shut up.

I wanted to be important, to be known, to have a reputation,
to have the largest secret hide-out on my block,
to have cool clothes and toys,
even though my parents never bought me an Atari,
and so no one would come over to play with me.

When I was a little older, 
I realized that I had failed in my quest for respect and admiration.
I’m not sure what I wanted then.
I think I wanted just to be normal,
not to have respect or admiration or distinction of any kind,
but to blend in, to be cool enough, to say I dun’no in just
the right cool way.

Then when I was a little older, I wanted to be more masculine,
to not fantasize about boys (even though I didn’t know
that’s quite what I was doing),
to be athletic instead of the last-kid-picked.
But I still, inside, craved recognition:
a replacement for love denied.
I never learned
that no one likes a smartass.  

Yet even if I had been as stupid as Kellie,
the girl who left my homeroom class to work at Montgomery Ward;
even if had been as cagey as Gina,
who hid her intelligence from her co-cheerleaders;
I still wouldn’t know how to dress.
I would still have been at home on Friday night,
when apparently everyone else was at McDonald’s.
So let’s not assume.

As I got a little older,
I found out I wanted love.  I was afraid of failure, though,
thought that my dick was broken because no girls turned me on,
never thought that the nervousness, the curiosity, the unthwartable
drive, all of that – never thought that was lust.  
Don’t know what I thought that was.  
Desire for friendship, I think.

I was so lonely, that I wonder even now,
if I didn’t really want to jerk off the cute guys;
that really I just wanted to be friends with them.
Or maybe what I wanted was to jerk them off,
and it was the friendship that was false.

I didn’t know what I wanted.
I pushed away one boy who loved me,
got pushed by a girl I didn’t love enough,
chased after boys who would never love me,
met strange men in strange places as a substitute,
and now?
Now that I’m a little older,
I still don’t know how to get what I want,
but I better know what it is.
And I don’t think I’ll pour out rambling words anymore,
trying as I say them to form attractive phrases
in order to dress the nakedness.
 
 
 
 

Jay Michaelson
jay@metatronics.net