Platitudes

Darlings, I’ve swallowed
too many platitudes from you all.

If positivity was a drug,
I’d be River Phoenix by now.

They’d have investigated you,
tossed a book of Gibran at your smile.

If so, would you remember me today
as fondly as we do him? Or

would you have blocked me out,
thinking me stupid

for dying from sugar poisoning?
Would you ask yourself

how it could be that a man died
from an overdose of light?

If you were me,
you’d understand.

I was born to be the praise
for what crawls from under the rock.

I was born to be sullen art.
I was made for contrast.

Know I didn’t choose this.
I’d have rather been sunlit,

blind from the glare of day.
I do appreciate your cheer.

But sometimes your words
are doubled by a voice

saying, “Not that.  Not that.”
Neglected darkness speaking?

I don’t know. I just know
how I am when it sounds off:

I’m most comfortable
with that in my ear.

Call me a downspout
for psychic rain.

Call me a slipped noose
or a damaged launch. Not that —

I am the brother of those.
The diary of a charm

against what we won’t name.
Keep your affirmations —

I can’t learn that tongue;
the one I know, I know too cold.