I first met indignation
while he was velcroed,
face down, to the street
like burrs
latching onto a toasty fur jacket.
He was anything but meek
at the sight of passing cars,
a Tiananmen Tank Man
in his own martyrdom fantasy.
Indignation smirked
while he asked me where I was from,
his snarky grin widening
as he looked hawkeyed
at the privileged boy
standing before him.
I asked him the same,
and he chuckled and wheezed,
knowing I already had a guess.

Indignation never really knew his father,
but his mother made sure
to remind him of how similar
they looked everyday.
That was back when indignation
loved his mother,
before the feeling was always
lost in translation,
with a tinted glass of affection
somehow standing between them.

Indignation may have had talent
lodged deep within
the covered abyss
of his shadowy personality,
but it was never shown,
there was never a chance.
He was only in high school for
3 - scratch that - 2 years
before he ultimately decided
he was done with
the trips to the dean's
and the hungover mornings,
done with the growing stack
of crisp unopened report cards
on the moldy apartment floor,
beneath mounds
of government checks and food stamps,
all addressed to his mother,
the report cards
seething with failing grades,
waiting to unravel him
but eternally concealed.

Indignation makes me sick.
He mocks me for heading in early
because I have work the next day,
jeers at my concern
for my goals and premonitions,
and squeals in self-pity
at the circumstance
he's been left in.
But rightfully.
That's what leaves
a pit in the bottom of my stomach,
like someone's weaving
a web of woe
where my wrongs
are all around me,
from my earthly,
tuscan sun brick house,
to my anything-but-stainless-steel
silver ‘91 station wagon.

Indignation never understood
why he couldn't get what we wanted.
But I think he wanted
what he couldn't handle,
and that's why I'll still catch him
sprawled in the left lane,
cars swerving around him
in a way so familiar to him -
the same way he swerves
from the work it will take
to obtain the life
he so desperately clings for.