We type #thestruggle as a joke and follow twitter members named "First World Problems," so I assume we understand the absurdity of our culture's tendency to chronically complain. We are all guilty--some more than others--of turning a minor problem into a tragedy. We focus on which clothes to wear, which phones to buy, and which of our things we can flaunt in certain circles. The reality is, this stuff doesn't matter. At all. And though this is an oft explored idea, life always has vacancy for a little wake up call.
My cousin is a police officer and sees things that never reach the papers. To be an outsider looking in on someone else's pain is bad enough, but to carry the responsibility of "calming them down" so you can ask them objective, emotionless questions is a burden I wish not to endure. He described to me a recent call, which he called the "saddest thing [he's] ever seen," and which inspired this poem. The event caused us both to think about the minute things that consumed our attention that day--including what we were wearing. It led us to conclude that a tragic amount of people drift away from reality into a society-induced sleep that steals them from what is truly important. Sadly, sometimes death can be the only thing to wake them...
A Policeman's Paltry Wardrobe, Justified
My medley of
clothes, complete
with blues
to exploit my eyes
and reds and
yellows and matching ties
for each
point-collared shirt, dangles above brown feet
and black-toed
leather with wooden soles,
worn from
dancing when I wore them to dance
with the
pinstriped pleated pants
now pinned
to the plastic, ready for banquets or weddings or any of their roles;
Indeed I can
assemble such
wonder,
a wardrobe of
garments set asunder
from
counterparts, fit for any moment for any man
who dares to
invest such care
in
appearance, who thinks patterns
and linens
would matter
if I happened
to trip and fall dead to the bottom of the stair
like this
woman, found by her daughter
in this
crimson sweater of wool,
which
matches the blood rippling from her skull
onto the
concrete that caught her;
this blue
smile, unaltered by gargling screams
that grapple
with the chilling warmth in her cheeks,
which wrestles
with the exhaling breath that seeks
to wake her
from infinite dreams—
O revive the
eight men and me, black-suited,
who circle a
throttled body, contorted
yet dressed
for this moment mistakably thwarted
by phantom
chance, while true purpose ascends from her grave, uprooted
by the
thought of my closet, aligned
for show and
supposed events,
this collage
of color meant to represent
a life which,
if defined by this, is undefined,
and so I waive
the right to repurpose
these
things drooping from steel like wilted dreams
or like the
limbs of a mother, death seeping from her seams,
bludgeoning me
with a cost I conclude isn’t worth it.
