In The City Of California

mama said overkill
& daddy said dying.

look what i found today
look look what i'll be today.

bicycle bicycle
i want to ride a bicycle
down two-lane roads
for five odd miles

time time
graduated
and so long.

(if the earth loves me i will be working at rasputin music come very soon)

today my dad and i talked
about: earthquakes.
and how, if the one steady
thing in life can fail you,
then what can you believe in?

then we talked about the stranger.
l'étranger. the outsider.

and i told him about zines
and he assumed sds meant i was a
big-d Democrat

and i thought of ayn rand
(who people hate when they want to seem liberal
but the next thing they do is shop at the gap)
and i love ayn rand though i disagree with her philosophy
and i love her because she emphasizes the individual
and can you give the world happiness
if you aren't happy?

because that was this year:
fighting for rights to fill some sort of void
surrounding myself with passionate people to avoid my apathy
(and most people in political organizations are filled with apathy)

and if i could bottle my own happiness (or sadness)
and show that
then that could make someone else happy

because
just as the middle-class is fucked when it comes to college tuition,
those of us with food and water and clothes and shelter
are meant to have no reason for sadness

but this is the 21st century.