Outcast

Being an outcast,
well is outrageous
nobody seems used to being smart
who you meet
or ever have had to really come to terms
with their own value judgments
and how they affect their life
and the people they interact with.

It means I get to dress in black
with a tattered scarf as my belt
because I don't want to look
like a psychiatrist's son
if I end up dead
or taken away by police again
to the two institutions
that probably have housed me too many times
but then again
I have voluntarily gone a few times over
once spending my birthday
in the psych ward
and being asked by a Jewish woman
who was all talk named Azriela
to marry her.

I think I pissed her off
by being myself,
but there you go
an outcast
has no better friends
than the weird motions of people
professing caring, allegiance, feality and whatever
only to have those rescinded
at the first sign of trouble

I know a few things
but I wouldn't dare tell you

My guess was I was just too awkward
at parties that were about drugs and politics
and let me tell you
that I got scared when I got kicked out of a writing program
for talking about the Iraq war
when we were having wine.
I'm glad I told the son of a bank merchant later
to go fuck himself
as he held down some clerical job for the university
that he got by brown nosing and not at all from being adept at writing.

Beautiful meals is a byline of mine,
whether its some stupid hot dog at eight am
or a fifty cent donut
or six pints of hard cider,
they come with the realization
that this living
is a dangerous thing
so its preservation
is beautiful.