Even at my weakest, even at my worst

I know what I am

and nobody’s opinion

is going to change that.

The golfers have picked-up on my attitude

the teachers, the checkers in supermarkets

They know when someone is defeated or when

said person

is simply resting up a bit.

It didn’t always used to be this way

I was a victim

of their moods,

their rainy days, their opinions like lightning bolts.

Many claim to hate me

they say, I have issues…

That is the understatement of the year

I look at something beautiful, and I know it can’t be had

a rose,

a 21-year-old woman with perfectly tanned tits, wearing nothing

on a summer day

totally unconscious, that her clothes are missing, and I am staring at her through the fence with binoculars…

Being in a car with her, going on vacation with her, living in a house with her

Being co-owners of our lives

is not as good as being a voyeur of her.

In fact, we cannot appreciate what we hold onto

until we lose it,

which begs the question…

Why do we try to hold onto anything?

We are like sand in the desert

mixing

confused by time

“Do you want me to move my cart? Am I in your way?”

“I hope not,” I said. The guy was parked near the water hazard.

“I like your spirit—positive thinking…” And I nailed my drive, strait down the fairway

He doesn’t know

that I am almost dead, but I can enjoy the day, anyway—

and my bad golf game too.

The guy in my group screams, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuckin Shit!”

He throws his golf club

after 3 failed attempts to get out of the sand

He spent lots of time there today

2 holes later, he couldn’t find his ball in the middle of the fairway

or in his case, the fuckin fairway

I thought he was going to call his psychiatrist…

but it was only his mother, living in a nursing home.

At my worst, the world keeps turning

At my best, it does the same

All my beliefs about myself

that matter

are the ones that nobody knows about, but me.

They’re the ones that say, “You know what? You’re hot shit. It doesn’t matter what happens. It doesn’t matter what you do. You could break the course record today, but it wouldn’t change you.”

And that’s true.

All I want to do is go home and write the story brewing in my mind.

I look at the guys I’m playing with

they look at me

“This was fun,” I said. “I got to go.”

“So soon?”

I barely said two words to them, in my weakened state, but they already miss me

Who knows why?

Probably, because I didn’t talk about sports.

My latest boss

tried to do that, by making idle chit-chat, to gain rapport with me

because I’m a guy—talk about sexist (Not all men like sports—well, I like to watch golf)

“Nope, I didn’t see the game,” I said. She didn’t have a clue.

Now, if she had said something about literature, I would’ve been hers in a heartbeat.

It’s strange, the things people say

to pass the time.

Most of it, would be better left

unsaid.