If I Were a Poet

The virgin is in love with the lungfish.

OK, I’ll admit I didn’t write that…
That was my college roommate, Mike.
He had a talent for coughing up these verbal hairballs,
while the rest of us sat, cross-legged on the carpet, sipping cappuccino and nodding our heads like “why yes… of course… I completely agree,”
while, to be honest, none of us knew what the hell he was talking about.
Man, I wanted to be that guy.

After that I traveled for a while;
I performed for small audiences,
I was a musician, a computer programmer,
briefly a salt water aquarium repairman;
I was Xavier, Alexander, Dmitri, and Watanabe.
Tonight I’m just John
because I can’t think of anything more creative.

Perhaps that explains why right now
I’m at an indoor rock climbing gym;
And while everyone else is plotting how to conquer
a fifteen foot high piece of concrete,
In my mind I’m lying in a boat on a moonlit lake
with a brown-eyed girl softly singing to me
in a language that has eleven vowels and the letter L.

The truth is
I want to get out of here and just keep going
until I’m somewhere that’s not like anywhere anyone has ever been,
And there, I hope, I can finally be myself.