Captain Your Own Damned Football Team

One out of every one poet was picked last for something
and tonight they're going to tell you about it
And tomorrow night
they're going to tell you about it again

This is why they were picked last for everything

Some kids aren't gifted parents with grammar tongues
and candy wallets
Some kids will never be cameraed for Christmas
like you were

The kid picked first for kickball's parents taught him two things
1.) The world is always throwing things at you
Kick them or bat them away with as much force as you can
and 2.) when someone is chasing you
you'd better pray you run faster

You were picked last
because you always whined to the gym teacher about how running was unfair
how baseball was unfair
how dodgeball was unfair
how volleyball was unfair
how the ropes were too frayed for climbing
the chin up bar too slick with other kids' sweat

You labelled yourself ugly duckling
like every other goose in your flock
But all your peers and teachers knew what you'd grow into
Your voice

The only muscle you ever flexed was your tongue

Girls don't appreciate a man's tongue until college
and boys only appreciate it in the dark

You pronounce high school like an obscenity
like you were the only prisoner in a ward full of jailers

Every hormone in the hallway was convicted of adolescence
and sentenced to education
same as you
Everyone served their time and was eventually paroled

Next week
write me an equation I've never seen on a blackboard
a tune to clap some erasers to

Don't spill me a beaker filled with the teacher who inspired you
Don't litter the playground with first kisses
Fold me a fortune teller filled with pasts
Memoried confessions no one would have signed in your yearbook
not because it was scandalous diorama
but because it's a picture colored outside your lines