Originally posted 8/5/2012.

I’m telling myself the truth
for a change.
I admit
that now and then

it would feel good
to swing a hand
and connect with a
hard yet crackable jaw.

I disregard the claims of
comfortable wisdom and note
that most criminals I’ve known
had mountain-high self esteem.

That war thing, the one
where we rush into it singing?
We’ve all tried for years to stop it,
yet it keeps coming up.

Anger, said the Dalai Lama,
is unnatural. Yet somehow
every baby I’ve ever seen
knew from birth how to make a fist.