Sorry for the delay - I wandered into the comments section of The Daily Header and lost a couple days. The last thing I remember Smellrat was asking if I wanted a Helen Keller. Anyways, here's the poem that won 3rd place in the highly prestigious Vermont College Poetry Slam.


It's So Easy

feeling superior when
you live in this house.

The haze of strong pot
grown in closets, with love,
fills our livingroom where I know
loose-jeaned boys will sit through the night.

Moose barks at one who knocks at our door.
Shaggy hair will not hide
his mediocre dreams.
Condescending, I know.
But it's true.

They laugh too loudly at Caddy Shack
and at all the wrong times.
Cypress Hill fills the background
and they mistakenly think,
you can tell by the way that they sit,
that by listening they have become cool.

It's so easy to sit here
silently mocking
their narrow lives that fit
so nicely
down the mouth of a bong.

And here I sit
with my own friend
this screen.

We whisper like gossips over coffee
me in my ratty pink slippers and she
in her plastic and glass
who always understands me
and always laughs.