Published on: 1/8/2016
Same Old Story

For me, to read a novel is to feel
discounted. Characters inside pretend
I don't exist, as though I were less real
than they are, never having to defend

myself from some prolific author's wild
imagination, beaten down by plots
that leave a person helpless as a child
in wartime. What do they know? There've been lots

of times it seemed as if a loaded gun
were pressed against my head, or prison mates
decided on a whim to have their fun
at my expense instead of lifting weights,

which was their normal recreation. Yes,
I'm quite familiar with scenarios
in which the specter of extreme duress
attends those vital questions no one knows

the answers to. Much comfort there would be
in learning an omniscient Author stood
behind the scenes, whose mission was to see
that endings always turned out for the good.

You characters, ignore me if you must,
but don't assume that your travails are worse,
for though your spelled-out lives may gather dust,
my own will find erasure in a hearse.