Maybe If I Keep Reading

Maybe if I keep reading
I’ll become more and more like THEM!
I could use words such as
floccinaucinihilipilification
and feel like I’m really (no really!)
contributing something important to the world.

Maybe if I keep reading long enough
my brain will feel like an egg
that unwillingly erupts its yolk.
giving way to creative birth pangs
which sting like a wasp in fall
and cover my ivory skin
with that special slime only ugly truths
(and eggs) can leave behind.
Maybe if I keep reading
I can learn time management
so I can eat, drink, piss, shit
write and sleep all at the same time.

Maybe if I keep reading
I can learn to pray the gay away…
or maybe, just maybe, if I keep reading,
I’ll stop feeling like living is dying
like working is sleeping
and loving is lying.

Maybe if I keep reading
I’ll believe in Jesus or Buddha
Or maybe I can stop wondering why
I can’t covet my neighbor’s wife--
But what about her husband?

Maybe if I keep reading
I can quit smoking, quit drinking--
perhaps even stop feeling.
Maybe if I keep reading I can master
cunnilingus, fellatio and abstinence.
Maybe I can learn how to self help myself
or cook 30 minute meals
or do chemical peels…

Maybe if I keep reading I can
let poetry course through my fingers.
Maybe I can stop connecting
with bone and blood
and make contact instead with
heart and soul.

Maybe if I keep reading
I’ll see what it means to be empty
so that I can be whole.

Copyright © 2008 by Vincent John Ancona