you were a native son of the suburbs
way too slowly growing up
you happened to glance out the window
and see a package truck
throwing cherry petals
off its roof like confetti
right then you knew it was on you to find diamonds in drops of rain and the rough mundane
yeah that same refrain
you thought you’d written it
till they made you read Ferlinghetti
and suddenly you found all the people around you
didn’t hear the same sounds or feel the same things
and something told you
hey
start getting ready

to smash em all to pieces
bring em to their knees as
they learned to sing your words right on cue
once the spotlight was following you

a few years down the line you consented to school
just to get away from the fools and sharpen your tools
and help mom and dad sleep serene
so you spent a few years learning ropes
and notes by rote and smoking dope and stoking your hopes
all while flirting
with regression towards the mean
but that factory farm for easy charm on K-12 job interviews
felt like a noose around your muse
so you took off your shoes and threw them in the machine

you dropped out
you moved to dream city as soon as you could
you found a place in the former hood
a shit job and a new mob
just trying to surround yourself with the brightest
and you all went to each others’ shows and openings and readings and parties and you had a scene
on which to preen
on your knees
at the feet of Thou Mightest
and year by year it became more and more clear
that all your expensive sensibilities and sensitivity
they weren’t helping you along in the slightest

but you kept on believing
as basic as breathing
even as your plans began to fall through
as if the spotlight was following you

it’s all that kept you getting up
kept you keeping up
kept you pulling away
and now the skies are drying up
have you had enough
will you walk off right into the grey

and all your friends from way back when are moved on, married, marks being made and feeling safe
and a few of them still call without being baited
and all those other people you looked down upon and made fun of for all those years
well they still don’t care about the worlds you’ve created
and off and on you find yourself wondering about the ones before you
and just how was it they found themselves
beloved by the ones they berated

and were you fated for crashing
and will they sift through your ash
and find the diamonds you had hiding from their view
cause the spotlight was never following you