I.
What am
I to you,

I said to the oh-so principled student
in my ap gov “class,”
(if you want to call it that.)

some figure,
marked under some income line.

well, fine.

Do you care that your father's
a salesman, a charlatan,
selling his lies at city hall,

living in a nice house away from it all,
in the hills?
yes, go be proud of that.

Would you think of me differently,
if I was still so silent and strange,
but, also wore golden chains
and joined you at your parties
at daddy’s lakehouse in the shade,
where the fine cocaine
sprinkles like diamonds in the cold mountain air
(though you yourself, is far too refined to be so inclined)

and on your way home,
would I be all good,
like you,
if I sat in the passenger seat and grinned
as your benes
roars past a trailer park and section eight,
whose residents all wake up
and collectively roll their eyes.

yeah, too many of them rich kids,
who’ve spent years clustered in APs,
forget the other half of this town
and think they’re far from the ears
of anyone born with a plastic spoon in their mouth.
they still claim theirs isn’t silver,
just because they had to study
to get accepted to their parent’s alma mater.

I never believed it, but now I truly see,
most of those holy kids who speak of their charity,
their liberal sentiment,
would have me and my brother starve
over vague principles sputtered by their parents,
who heard on tv
the same old s*** that’s been sputtered for centuries.

“forget about what’s yours,
forget about humanity.
all we need is more money for the bureaucracy
and financial support
for a few more foreign wars.

progress is a lie.
this is the world that came,
this is the world to come,
and it’s a hard one.
especially for men as high up as us.”

My father’s the smartest, hardest man I know,
and he always keeps his calm.
says he learned his lesson
about what he ought to fight
when he was young.
a man groomed in the woods and the bars
and friends’ campfire-lit backyards,
where you might say he was stuck
in an ancient rural cycle
of following fathers’ hard and increasingly obsolete occupations.

but, he learned how to rebel and not get beaten,
and how to stand as a man
in a system that wanted his heart and
tried to cauterize his throat.

My mother works long hours at the hospital,
and she likes to joke around,
but I know she’s not kidding,
when she’s says it’s to give me a shot at something.
Her old man, almost had a chance.
born one of twelve
to an immigrant on a farm,
he was a fighter and he didn’t do bad
punching at the Garden for rich men from New York,
but sometimes, no matter how hard you hit,
it isn’t enough.

so, don’t f---ing speak about old American principles,
in the presence of me, kid,
cause I’m a regular, bona fide American son:
born of strong men and woman,
still below the poverty line,
and, as a category,

considered scum.

I never thought of myself as a figure, some number,
and you’ve never thought of me much,
but you always certainly saw a man.
but when you speak in generalities
about my “lower class,”
then you’re saying I’m not real,
because I’m barely scraping by.

So sit in your nice house and speak of distant slums
(less distant than they seem)
and the money your father could save
if those poor folks needed no support,
if they just tried harder to work.

well, you know my parents,
and you know how much they make,
and if you told them what you think
you’d know you were lying to their face.

II.
And now I’m home,
where out my poor, chipped window,
I see the mountains and the sky.
I see power in that,
I see something that never lies.
How I love a spring storm on the rise.
If I ever,
against all odds
(by birth and by design),
eventually make a dime
I swear to god I'll blow it
rather than support this country’s truest crime.

And if I ever have a child
I'll tell that kid to
“keep your brains and leave the cash.”
success is just a dead end and every inch you gain,
it seems, the less you have left.
Cause right now,
I guess I’m poor,
but I can see the cold spring sky
and by god it's all mine.

And that dumbass
AP student
will never understand a thing,
regardless of whether or nor not
he takes a course called “poverty in America”
at some New England college in the fall.

bastard will probably end up king of us all.

III.

I once played
a Walmart guitar
for that kid’s sister,
a desirable girl
who considered settling for me.
She didn't think screaming “diamonds in the mine”
and smashing my nails on all the strings
was a dignified showing of humility.

Well, I could love
almost anyone,
but I don't want someone settling on me
and I don’t need another person wondering “what's wrong?”
If you don't know,
then get gone.

I’m sick of hearing.
“What's wrong?
this is essentially suburbia
Be glad you’re not getting limbs chopped off
or swatting flies
in Ethiopia,

here, its too cold for flies to survive,
its too cold for you to die.”
But, hell is
whatever hopeless situation
we’re forced to accept.

IV.
I'm not some
domesticated deer
you can feed trail mix to
or some rich kids can be inspired to
illegally play hunter and shoot
in their backyard
after seeing some staged tv show
on the Discovery station.

I'm like a legend,
a mountain lion, a wolf,
my forebears killed off and soon felt ashamed.
Now I'm making a reappearance
in these hills.
You should see me when I’m back for good,
free to roam my ancestral home.

You know they once
thought the coyotes were all gone,
now they run these woods.
so nothing dies for good.

I'm not a cog
in their rusted machine,
in their clock,
long stuck,
with all progress stopped.

And I'll refuse to be
what they tell me I can be
and what I should be.
By god I'll survive,
without accepting the old long-lies.

V.

and, yes, today
that kid’ll spark a discussion in class,
about the morning paper’s story.

yes, kid, I hear the heroin and drinking rates here
are the highest in the nation.
but its just as much your kind as mine,
who are slowly killing their minds.

I guess we’re all unhappy,
and all always high,
I guess we all are having trouble
figuring out how to survive.