Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I’m Crazy Too

By: Kyle Elden

We are all crazy
in our own way
hiding tiny pieces of
ourselves from the world

I may run along the Lakewalk
at seven and a half minute miles
marked by my nike plus watch
& shoe sensor
at three in the afternoon
past a picnic table of local drunks
yelling “fuzzzk you bitch”
and “I don’t care about anybody, anybody”
smoking Marb 100’s, passing around a forty
in seventy degree heat

running in perfect form
past a woman sleeping on a bench
skin turning red, sweat gleaming
across her cheeks
wearing a knit winter hat
faded black sweatpants
and a navy blue t-shirt
with a ripped up right sleeve
bare feet jutting off the edge
years of disappointment
and loss sculpted into the fierce way
she clutches tightly to the bottle, her elixir
wrapped in a brown paper bag
mumbling softly
“you told me you loved me,
you loved me….”

Maybe for a second
I feel good about myself
juxtaposed next to
them
with their mistakes,
their pain on display
like a storefront window
in a shop called CRAZY
that I don’t want to step foot in

only I partially envy them
with my mistakes, my pain neatly packaged
hidden from the world

what would it feel like to fall apart
right outside the Biffy
in Canal Park
amidst a swarm of tourists
to yell, and cry, and scream, and pound my fists
on the cement until they bleed
shedding light on my darkest secrets,
on my imperfections

2 comments:

  1. This poem is a killer. Wow! Great emotion, such powerful images. You are brilliant.

    -Amber Snow

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  2. Heard this first from Judge Floerke during his keynote speaker address, and it has touched me in so many ways as I've been on both sides of view... Uncomfortably sitting in the middle of both at the moment...

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