This is a poem about all things obvious.
Like the stutter in my walk that is obvious to all
who love me. Don’t love me. I walk into walls
that are obvious to all but myself. See the bruise
on my forehead? That’s wisdom’s kiss. You miss it
the way I missed the bus the day you said
you couldn’t wait for Fate to decide the obvious
and so you would bend its knee, make it bow to your will
and grant you three wishes and a storybook ending
in a story where nobody’s heart need ever be mended
and we sailed through life without having offended
anyone, not the fur ball who leaped from your couch
to mine, nor the sleepy star that burned while we
whiled the time. Nothing, you promised, would
happen to me. Because we had happened. We
would be happy. And that’s when it all became
obvious to me, this wall between your vision
and the hole in my heart, my stuttering walk, the high
nasal wheeze of my everyday talk. Every day
I carry a lump of coal in my throat. But you,
your talk full of sky.