Sometimes I’d just like to say, I don’t care.
Just come out and say it then look away,
ignore the tears, the high-pitched lament,
the wringing of hands as reality wobbles then
crashes all around them.
Maybe to a stranger. Maybe my great
aunt it doesn’t matter. What matters
is saying I really don’t care.
Then as their eyes, wide and brimming with
tears look into mine, pleading really,
that I’ll listen and act, I won’t.
I’ll just roar like the Marx Brothers
are on TV and when done look back
at them and — Oh I don’t know, say again,
I just don’t care.
Then when they get angry and the tears
are gone. When rage fills the spaces
left open by hope falling away, when
reason is just a bad idea and the fists
are moved into play — and I’m howling like an
animal stuck in a trap and over the
nonsense coming from my mouth
I shout — I don’t fucking care.
Not sure where all of this will lead me.
To heaven or hell. To the back of
the class, the line, the place where nothing
good happens, but I have a feeling, that when
all is said and done, and the lights are
dimmed so nothing is clear — I might just
feel alive and free of being someone
all the time that I’m not.
Of having to look at this world with compassion
when just once I’d like to thrust up my middle
finger, wave it like a fucking flag, and in
French or Italian or Cajun Patois tell
whoever is listening to go away. Far away.
Ruin someone else’s day.
Rain on their parade because I have
grieved the loss of fun, of childlike happiness,
of swimming naked in a pond and it’s
time for me to shake it off. Toss it
aside and say in whatever tongue
will be heard best — it’s your world now,
I’ve tried my all, don’t know what else
to say, so here’s what I got.
In the best possible way these words
can be understood — take a hike, turn
around, find another shoulder to cry
on, and if that’s isn’t enough then
what can I say, other than — -
I don’t fucking care.
The last month or so has left me feeling weak and exhausted. Not physically so much, I’m doing alright in that department. Not even mentally, though the words are taking longer to be said, having to work their way up through a higher degree of crap swirling around up there. Just the sense that I’m stuck in a bad ‘60s sitcom.
Thanks to the news, the old debate, and the pundits saying what they say best, all culminating in my soul feeling like a pair of trousers being squeezed through a wringer.
I’ve tried leaving the world alone, letting it fly solo around the sun — asking it to go bother someone else. But it’s not working. Every morning. And I mean, every fucking morning I awake with the same worries fighting in my head.
Marciano versus Joe Louis, with Mike Tyson taking shots at me from the side. Bam Bam Bam and that’s before I’ve had a chance to pee or look out a window and for a second be grateful that I’m not in some swirling vortex that Dante described in one of his self-flaggelating poems about the end of life
I’m in my kitchen, back against the counter looking at the lights, the swirling fan, the decorative plates lining the walls that my wife has lovingly arranged so I have something to smile at every day.
What hits me right in the heart are choices. To think about the orange-haired devil or his disciples or ponder how people ignore the hissing sounds he makes as his forked tongue flicks in and out of his mouth.
To listen to those who’re supposed to know more than me, with heads nodding like a bobblehead and prognostications spewing forth that the end of times is nigh.
Heaven help us.
The poem reflects just a bit of the frustration I feel and I assume many others feel when life presents itself as a one-item smorgasbord — this is the way it is, and you’ll love it.
You see, I’ve tried to leave it. Tried to turn away and say no thanks, but it’s not listening. It turns as I turn and no matter the direction it’s back in front of me grinning ear to ear, tapping itself on the chest saying — I’m back.
Yeah, I noticed.
Wouldn’t it be nice when listening to someone saying something negative to have the option to just look them in the eye and say just as clearly — I don’t care?
You can talk all you like, sure, but I’m walking away because whatever it is that’s on you’re mind, whatever pressing matter prompts you to get in my face and deliver that message. Whatever bile is bubbling up from within you — I really don’t fucking care.
Maybe if we all said this more often and meant it, those who always make our choices difficult would have disappeared long ago as bad ideas, bad moments and bad people often do.
I hear you, Joe. Life can be so f*cking cruel and it’s only when we hit rock bottom that we can slowly bounce back and appreciate the good times. I wish you well and many happy times to come.
Hitting the wall of overwhelm. It happens to us all. 💕