I don’t look like
what I feel like

Wasn’t raised like
what I look like

Look like one
and not the other

Feel like both
and feel like neither

It sometimes leaves me
stumbling on speech

and unfamiliar
with how to get by —

but what I do with this
is up to me

You don’t get
to decide

Fourth of July, I’m alone
and no fireworks of any kind
will console me.  

Today I want to forget my usual hobby
of arguing about issues of race
and class and gender and ability
and identity and struggle and stigma.

I want to desperately prefer
the Sox, rage about trading Youk
without any fear of triviality —
I want
to be in a bar right now
having an incoherent conversation
about all this
with a fan of a local team.

No discussing the country as it is.
I don’t care what it is, not today.
I simply don’t care.
Rocket’s red glare
is a party right now
when I’m this close
to screaming alone.

Let me get drunk, then,
let me get hammered and happy 
so I can love where I’m at.
I’ll wave a flag big enough to hide me
from the neighbors.  Big enough
to wrap up in, sleep it off in,
big enough to make a mummy for
my hangover tomorrow, big enough
to stuff my ears against the bombs
bursting,
etc.