Columnist

I never thought I’d consider becoming a columnist
who
like Dear Abbey
gives my version of advice to the idealized audience I also am
who
for lack of description
seems to defy my very idea of one
by preferring to remain invisible to whatever’s sharpened and ready inside me
perhaps it’s a reassembly of my own personal version of Frankenstein
who
for all I know
was what Shelley intended to suture into me
so I’d be able to tell who I truly am from whatever new abomination I want to be
not that I don’t mean well you understand
it’s just that I’m looking to finally have something I can’t take back
even when I’d like more than anything
to reassemble my fear over being essentially wrong
into an intense and devoted love that looks like it came
feet first
out between the legs of my electrical socketed heart
just for me.
My grandfather’s father wrote for the paper at a town in Vermont
apparently he was labeled quite eccentric
a bit of a hermit I’ve been told
the writer and poet in me admires him for that
I’m young
I still think it takes courage to be alone
but I know it’s nothing compared to the aloneness his cancer riddled wife must have felt
they watched the old man leave with
I’m sure
plenty of sorrow
but you know
I didn’t admire my grandfather for taking care of his mother the way he chose to
admiration is a four letter word for I want what you got now give it to me
no
I didn’t admire him for that at all
I loved him for that
his mother died in bed filled with colors and little mountains of pain
him sitting there with her
and you know
I can’t think of a better way to go.