this is my inheritance:
a worldview shaped by
the fantastical plotlines
of nineteen-nineties kids'
television programming

the misguided belief
that any and everything
is obtainable
is doable

that one day i can become
anything other than what i am
fated from birth to become

a doctor
the president of the united states
a lawyer
an actor
a famous musician
a writer

and none of these things are plausible
not for a middle class kid from a tiny suburb of
indianapolis

there is i believe a new york elite
there is i believe
but i know it's wrong to think this
an impregnable network of
old-money and jewish and destined
personalities
who become the things
that people like me
can never become

they're not confined to new york
they live on either coast
read the bio of any celebrity:
they are from one of two places
new york or california
there are exceptions but these are people
with connections

i don't want to be famous
it's the principle of the matter
i just want to be taken seriously
i don't like being lied to
i want to feel like
yes
any and everything really is within
my reach
that all the things my teachers told me
all the things the television told
that rock and roll magazines
and printed interviews
are true and that i can
i really can
become whatever i aspire to be
but i know
i know because i figured it out for myself
the hard way
that this simply is not true

i am who i am with the connections i have
the connections i was born with
the connections i inherited from my parents
and there is nothing that will change this
especially considering how
painfully shy and awkward and in-my-own-head
i am

i will never swim in social circles beyond the ones i know
i will never test alien waters
i will never see the black sea for myself
the dead sea
i only know it by what i see in pictures
what i read in books or online
i know that it's real because i've seen the photographic evidence
i've heard people talking about it
how it's so dense with salt that you can lie down prostrate and float on the surface
as you would any
hard surface
i can almost feel it: my body fighting against the tar-like sludge
but i will never see it
i will never know it in real life
just like i will never know the things truly that i
see on tv
that i've seen on tv
that i continue to see on tv
the things i read about in books
in fluffy prose: the life romantic
things i read about in rock and roll interviews and
rock and roll journalistic pieces about rock and roll
i will never see firsthand a hotel room destroyed
a promising guitarist who people call an artist
destroyed by drugs and sex
but i can feel it
like the black sea
and i'm already floating on top of its dense surface
so hard
it feels like the ground