Poem #5

I don’t know what the game is. I don’t know what your name is. But your name has been in places I want mine to be. So it’s all sly petitioning and flattery. If I could tell you how this fills me with shame. But not as much as I envy your name. Give me two toothpicks, I’ll use them as swords to fight my way to a committee board who can give me the nod, give me the card, let me be part. I dreamed I was trying so hard to be part; someone said “She’s trying so hard to fit in.” I was, ambition was all I could sit in. Incomplete acts toward people who already had what I wanted. I do it all over again in dreams and every day I’m still haunted. Do I think it will ever end? Do I think I won’t be like this again? I’m like this asleep and awake – searching some parting of waves to let me in. Do I think it will magically paper over the person I am? Who I’ve become while I try to fit in? Tie stones to my neck, I can’t stand the shame. It’s just for a name.