You want to know what I’d change, if I could go back,
but that’s not a question, really, is it. Of course, the times
I was mean or short, the deaths of those around me,
my father, my daughter. Of course.

Long live transparency; there were times when something
caved in, a job or a relationship, that secretly I didn’t want,
anyway, but still I feigned disappointment. Or the times
I thought about breakfast during a funeral: you can’t exactly
admit to that kind of behavior, and I’m sorry for it.

When I was seven, my parents let me attend a movie
by myself. To show their faith in me, they actually left
the theater – no watching me from the balcony – they left.

And when the scary part dropped, I ran out of that theater,
just to make sure the busy streets and businesses
were still as intact as they had been before I walked in.

And there they stood in their bricks and repetitiveness,
awaiting consumers who had no idea they needed
to consume. And there was me, stranded between
fear and a busy street, with no money to spend
when they wouldn’t let me back in the theater.

But you already knew that, didn’t you.